If my mother resembled my grandfather, it was mostly in the length of their strides. My first memories were three to one, counting mine as I raced behind them. I marveled at their strength and purposeful speed. But it wasn’t an angry pace, I could tell by the loose swinging of arms, feeling that same joy as my own danced around my waist.
It’s a blur of how I went from three to two, to matching their strides completely. I can still feel the thrill of reaching out to that hand that swung back. Did it rest a little longer? Did I reach a littler farther? Didn’t all time stop as I clasped my sweaty palm into the certainty of love followed? Somehow I knew, it was also mine to carry. A joyful duty of continuing love’s long stride.
It’s funny how I had focused so on their feet, when it was their hands all along. The reaching out, the reaching back, the reaching out again. The sun is coming up. My heart tells my arms to swing.
I have been typesetting for most of my adult life, but I just learned this recently — When a paragraph begins on the last line of the page, the isolated first sentence is called an orphan. It has no past, but it does have a future. When the paragraph’s final sentence carries onto the next page, it is called a widow. It has a past, but no future.
I’ve always known that paper has a memory. If you fold it, the fold remains. Dog-eared books don’t forget. Each page is alive.
I won’t be able to unsee it now, the orphans and the widows. And that makes me happy. When we know better, we do better. And if we can do this for pages in a book, certainly we can do this for each other. We must never forget to keep humanizing. When you take this away from people, take away their stories, they lose everything, and so do you.
We all want to be seen. To be dog-eared in hearts and minds. It matters, this setting of type. It decides if we have a future.
She wrote to me, in French, that this portrait reminded her of her older sister who was no longer with them. She said she could see the sadness that she carried, (tristesse), but it also gave her hope (l’espoir).
One thing does not disappear the other. We live in between. And maybe that’s where all the beauty lies, if we choose to see it, in the transitions. In the state of becoming. I often have to remind myself, as I’m hurrying to “get through.” As if the furious speed held the answers.
There is no finishing. The woman wrote of her sister as “no longer with them,”…but yet, here we are, talking about her, in two languages. So isn’t she here, hovering between the sadness and hope, with just the slightest turn of head, turn of lip, her message ready to wing on, and on…
It doesn’t sound like a lot, 15 minutes, but the year they extended our bus route beyond the tanks, we had to get up earlier, or go to school with wet hair. (This was often my choice, and for most of the Norton girls at the end of Van Dyke Road.) I didn’t think of it then, but I’m sure it felt as invasive for the Frier’s as it was for us. Maybe they had been first on their route before. I’m sorry to say I didn’t ask, but merely wished that they would hurry up their own gravel driveway so we could get to school.
It’s funny how we claim things. Our bus. Our route. We were all just trying to get to our destination. To be with our friends. To swing our feet under desks while the teacher read aloud. To laugh at lunch without snorting milk out our noses. To learn, sure. To drop permission slips and backpacks with wild abandon and run into our mothers’ arms.
There will always be roads and worlds between us, but the road that runs beneath us, this remains the same.
I wait at the top of the hill. Mailboxes at my back. Gravel beneath my feet. Ready to share the ride.
I found it next to the trash bins on my walk yesterday. A small shelf made out of wooden slats — perfect for making a framing brace behind a painted panel. I walked it home. Took out the screws.. Pulled out the nails. Sanded each piece. And made my first frame for an existing panel.
Maybe it’s silly, but I feel like the wood is alive. Even after being cut. Even after supporting shoes in a French closet. Even after being discarded. Even after sitting by the bins, thinking there was still a chance to be of use. Didn’t it say, just take me home. Knowing that wasn’t back to the closet, or even the forest, but just somewhere to be valued. To be loved.
There has been a world of places where I’ve felt it. A variety of hands and hearts that have reached out, and taken me to places that I’ve never been, but walked me home all the same, with the gift of purpose, the familiar of heart.
We can do this for each other. Let go the forest, and be the pathway home.
Unlike her delicious pastries, most of my grandma’s ideas outside the kitchen were, as one might say, half-baked.
Even the successes that she served were a little hard to understand. They were given names that I didn’t realize were made up until in later years trying to Google a recipe. And if there were in fact recipes, they were never followed. When asked, she would laugh and puff the flour from hand to aproned belly and say, “Oh, I started in the middle.”
Not really understanding, I still found it unconventionally delightful. As were the chinchillas in the basement. The Publisher’s Clearing house magazines spread across the table. The various plots of land underwater or undeveloped purchased from a roadside gas station. The grab bags from Ben Franklin. The constant thrill of simply playing, neither winning nor losing, just in the game.
In front of my newest sketchbook, I understand. I never start at the first page. I always begin somewhere in the middle — where the pressure is off, only the joy of being in it. I’m trying to allow myself more of that freedom in my day to day. Not worrying about what was or what will be, just allowing, just being… aproning up and dancing in the kitchen.
We weren’t allowed to use words like, “But she got…” or “But he gets to…” on my grandparents’ farm. Maybe it wasn’t a rule, but it was certainly ineffective. With 27 grandchildren, Grandma Elsie had neither the time nor inclination to keep track of who got what. So we learned quite early on to not waste our time either, but to celebrate when you did indeed get the last Slo-poke from the Lazy Susan, or the much sought after Sugar Babies. Life wasn’t fair, but it sure was delicious.
When the two women came to my studio yesterday, their beautiful relationship of mother and daughter floated through our open gate. And to my joyful surprise, (I had been taught well), I didn’t feel jealousy or longing (for hadn’t I been given more than my share with my mother), but I felt truly happy for them. So I floated along.
I can’t say the lesson came easily. Last to take the spin in the bottom candy cupboard, there were only Black Cows left. I hadn’t yet developed the attraction to the darker covered caramel. Not one to hide any emotion, even then, I suppose it was clearly written on my face. My grandma called me in with her two open arms. I went reluctantly. Not wanting a hug, but something sweet — I was too young to understand the irony of that. I kicked my bumper tennis shoes against the floor and made my way into her aproned embrace. How could I help but smile? Feeling better and letting go, she pulled me in tighter this time, against her pocket. Something square pressed against my face. A box? Was it? My smile turned to surprise, and she pulled out a box of Sugar Babies.
Last night, in my pocket of something sweet, I spent two glorious dreams with my mother. Life is, in fact, delicious.
I hadn’t noticed it until the other day. I brought the painting of Charly inside from the studio. I set her beside another painting. It wasn’t until the next day I thought, “Oh, Charly is with Chuck.” And then I realized that Charles was just below them downstairs. These three sharing a name couldn’t be more different — not similar in age, gender, nor hobby, yet they were all connected. (A rose by any other Chuck…)
I was on a painstakingly long phone call with the bank. We went through my account number, my social security number, my PIN number, the code sent to a separate phone, and then finally she asked me, “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” Deep in the annoyance of trying to prove my identity, there I was, still connected to all that I loved the most. My grandparents. My mother. I laughed, and spelled it, nobody ever understands the silent H of Hvezda.
I don’t know if Charly, Chuck and Charles will ever meet. But I’d like to think they know. I’d like to believe they feel something bigger than themselves. A connection with a silent C, but connected just the same. Perhaps we all are… roses.
It’s a variety of the beignet, but distinctive to the south of France. More importantly, they are simply delicious! As luck would have it, the best I’ve ever tasted come from the boulangerie nearest our home. I suppose I’ve eaten my share, knowing that when I enter the door, either of the two women working there shout out, “Des oriellettes!” And I must say, it only makes them more delicious!
It’s the equivalent of the coffee shop knowing your order. The butcher your cut of meat. The librarian knowing your last read. The person on the walking path waving with an “it’s great to see you again this morning.” We all want to be seen. And what a simple and glorious gift it is! Names and numbers, status and rank, not required. A little eye contact. A smile. It goes a long way.
Sure, the oriellettes are sweet. What keeps me coming back, what tells them to fill up that sachet, is a little glimpse that they see me, maybe even enjoy it, and I enjoy it too — nothing much sweeter than that! My heart begins to dance.
My mother loved to read by the window. Of course the light was better, but knowing her, always in search of more air to breathe, she no doubt wanted the same for her open book.
I suppose that’s why I crave it too — the crack of a window, or the spine of a book. I think that’s what reading does, opens up everything. Allows more information in, and lets go of preconceived ideas. A refreshing. Simply put, more air to breathe.
The first time I really understood was on the playground of Washington Elementary. I mean really on the playground, after falling from the railings where the teeter totters used to be. Landing flat on my back, my internal wind ran like a rat from a ship and left me gasping. Like a fish flopping on the dock’s edge. That’s all I had, metaphors, no air to breathe. So this is how she felt, my mother, I thought, in those uncomfortable situations that only adults knew. Being judged for status or money or anything else a small town could measure you by. And I knew I would hug her after school. I would take all the air that I had inside of me once again and use it to run from the bus, through the garage door, into her arms, and give her that much needed air.
Empathy. It only comes from being open. I sit by the window with my open book. There is so much more to learn. To love. And so I breathe.
