To be so filled with life that it has to flush from your very pores. Cheeks ruddy and ever ready. I suppose we all think it will last forever — sure that our feet will keep the deal that youth has made. But maybe it’s the heart that takes over. (Or maybe it led all along.) Maybe it’s the heart that drags us from spring’s mud into summer’s bliss. Maybe it’s the heart that races through grass’s morning dew again and again, and lifts us up from green knees when we fall, ever promising to keep our cheeks flushed through autumn. Through winter.
Every time I paint a face, I feel the colors in my own, flowing through my hands. And the corners of my mouth rise up, smiling, so happy to be a part of youth’s reddening still.
What will you do today, to remain in the race of summer?
Yesterday I made both bread and cookies, so it’s not surprising that my daily sketch had her hands in the dough. My floured fingers were reminding my heart that it could always be a good day.
I guess that’s how I gauge them. For me they are good days, successful, as long as I do just that — “have my hands in the dough.” If I am in the attempt, covered in paint, or flour, or sweat, trying to make something, learn something, become something, then I’m ok.
And it’s usually the heart that gets most of the credit, and often well deserved. Follow your heart they say. Let your heart lead you. That’s always good advice. But I don’t want to forget the hands. The work. Sometimes the heart needs a little rest from all the heavy lifting. And sometimes, it’s the hands they say I’ve got this. I’ve got you, palms up.
I heard something recently. It was more about the tools you have in the garage, but it seems applicable — “Use what you have to get what you want.” And what I had yesterday, I had my hands. And the day was passed with effort and joy — exactly what I wanted.
And the beauty is, it’s nothing I have to wish for, I just have to do it. Every day. Put my “hands in the dough.”
The Christmas carcass became yesterday’s soup. Aproned and worry-free, I Grandma Elsied my way through the process. Adding everything. Measuring nothing. And it was delicious. Steeped with holiday and attention, it tasted rich and full, but for me, the added pleasure, satisfaction, joy, came with nothing being wasted.
I try to practice it — this making use. A scrap of metal turned into a frame. Discarded wood into panels. Yesterday’s still fresh oil paint into tomorrow’s tableau. And to me it’s all important, but I hope I pay the same attention to living. Using everything I have. Every speck of courage, because we’ll get more tomorrow. Loving with every piece of my heart, knowing it means nothing left inside. And perhaps it’s not as easy as pot to stove, but I was taught to attempt in Elsie’s kitchen. To abandon worry and just create.
She’s smiling over my soup bowls, but more over, my heart. Telling me daily to give it all, and just become.
It might surprise you to know that the best croissant we’ve ever had, was not in Aix en Provence, nor Paris, but San Francisco. We congratulated them. French butter, they said. It was perfection. Nothing added. No cookies or chocolate stuffed in the middle. No pistachio cream. Just a simple butter croissant. When things are done well, no additions are required.
And isn’t it the same with living? The best that we can offer is often without flare or fanfare. An open door. A seat at the table. An understanding that doesn’t require explanation, only a place, a presence.
We all know people who are struggling. Sometimes I think we imagine that we have to offer an answer. A solution. Most people really only want to know that you care — they want to taste the richness of your simple French butter — to step into the warmth of your heart’s kitchen, and simply sit down.
There is an older couple on YouTube that reviews restaurants and bakeries. Normally I can’t swipe away fast enough. I really don’t care what people eat. I only stopped one day when I saw they were giving a rating of 14 out of 10. It made me smile. How rare to see such positivity!
I don’t know their names to direct you. They show up on my feed now because I stop when I see them. It’s nothing new, this “power of attraction.” I mention it more as a reminder to myself.
When I first started my own art business, I gave myself two rules. Pay attention and surround yourself with the best people. It worked. It still does. And not just for business. Whether you are involved or not, positivity will always lift you. Everything else is quicksand.
I tried a new recipe for bread yesterday. We had it for breakfast. With a little French butter (a lot actually), lavender honey for me, my homemade apricot jam for Dominique — I give it a 14! I’m still smiling.
I’m sure my grandma had some sort of Tupperware, plastic containers, but I don’t really remember them. Then again, I don’t imagine there were a lot of things left over. Not a big concern on how to keep a batch of cookies fresh. I think the bigger concern was how to keep the large ceramic farmer pig full.
There was a time when I was small enough that I could go in elbow deep, once I removed his cookie jar hat. Fingers spread, I would swish and twirl as if that little farmer pig was holding out on me, hiding one last cookie. With so many kids, so many cousins, it emptied with a voracious speed, unlike most pigs had ever seen. Maybe she could tell by the clank of the cover. The sound of disappointment as the lid was dropped back on his head. Because without turning around, she began a new batch.
The defeat of the cookie jar clank, was soon replaced by the thrill of the mixer. Oh, to be so near! To be connected by swishing apron strings. To be first in line to taste the dough. And we did eat the dough without worry. (Truth be told, I still do.)
There are certain ingredients we don’t have in France. Like brown sugar. But yesterday, being elbow deep in desire for a chocolate chunk cookie, I got to work. I googled and searched. Turns out it’s just sugar and molasses. Then to find molasses. Again I searched. A small bio store carried it. Was it supposed to be this thick? Then I remembered “slow as molasses,” and I shook my head to myself. “Elbow deep” turned to “elbow grease,” as I painstaking stirred, and scraped, and stirred my white sugar brown.
I do have Tupperware, but I think these will go pretty quickly. Scents of sugar and chocolate and grandma waft through the house. My heart’s cookie jar is complete.
They differed in so many ways. Grandma Elsie would have laughed at the thought—harder than she’d laugh when beating us at a card game whose rules went unexplained — “iron my dish towels?????” I’m not sure a towel was dry long enough in her house for it to be ironed. A constant rotation from laundry to sink. From hot pan, to table wipe, to sticky face. Tucked inside her waist, then back to the laundry. I know for sure that after ironing mine, and hanging them just so on the rack, that’s all my mother.
But too, as I stand aproned and covered in flour, baking the bread that could easily be bought at the nearest boulangerie, I am my grandma.
Margaux, 14, will only know them by what I share. She loves the bread. She may not call it by name, but as she Elsies her way back for another slice, I think she knows. Excited for her shopping trip, I tell her to wear a button down, for speed in the dressing room, and to save on her hair and make-up. She smiles, and Ivies her way to Paris.
One day, will she Jodi her dish towels? I can’t be sure. But while I am here, she will feel us all, and know she is home.
We could have been aproned from her apron, but still we dove right in. I imagine the brunt of what she wiped from bowl to hand to apron ended up on the front of my shirt and the side of my face. This tug to be near defied all things sticky. I just wanted to be a part of it. Of what she was doing. Baking. Creating. Becoming. And she allowed it, because wouldn’t it all get washed, not in the laundry, but in my attempt to help with the dishes.
With the scent wafting through the oven’s heat, she filled the double sink. Extra bubbles. She asked if I wanted a stool. I shook my head no. The cupboard below was already scuffed from my tennis shoes as I placed my hands on the side of the cupboard and hoisted myself up on the edge of the sink. Belly balanced. Feet dangling. Completely wet. I danced my hands through the water. A temperature far less than what she could handle, I crawl stroked my way through the pile. Did she rewash them? I don’t think so, at least never in front of me.
When I could no longer breathe from the weight of balancing, I jumped down. Wiped my hands, my face, my neck and belly, all on her apron. And we were connected. A tug that still calls to me.
When I need the strength of “it’s good enough for joy,” I wrap myself in my Minnesota apron, bake the bread and wash the dishes in a temperature I never imagined I could handle, and I am home.
Being allowed to use the can opener was almost as freeing as learning to ride my bicycle. I went to great lengths to enjoy my five minute lunch alone in Hugo’s summer field behind our house on VanDyke Road. Perhaps it was the responsibility I displayed with my two-wheeler that gave my mother the assurance I could handle the responsibility of staying home alone. She taught me to tear off the label from the Campbell’s can of chicken noodle soup before I brought it anywhere near the burner. I poured the noodles into the pan. Then turned it on — I was only allowed to use the lowest temperature (You have more time than money she would tell me. No need to burn the house down.) I warmed it to luke, then poured it into the styrofoam thermos I had painted in stripes. I Tupperwared a stack of crackers. Filled another thermos of ice water. Put them all in my corduroy book bag that my mother had sewn for me. Placed that into the wicker basket of my bike. Kissed good-bye my dolls and stuffed animals as if going off to war. Then rode the five minute trail along Hugo’s field. Sat down in the smallest clearing just off the edge. Emptied the book bag. Made it into a tablecloth. Drank my soup. Drank my water. Relished in being my summer self. It was only a moment, but it was beautiful.
Here in France, I learned to bake the worshiped bread. Normally I do it in the afternoon. Freeze it for our toast each morning. But once in a while, I have the desire to start the day with fresh break. That means making the special recipe before bed. Getting up early. Then finishing the kneed, the roll and the baking. Washing the dishes while it bakes. Our house becomes a boulangerie. My fingers dance on the crust, as I cut the pieces. The butter melts without urging. Even the honey and jam feel special. It is only for this breakfast. There will be additional bread, but only this one moment, eating in the waft of this happy morning.
Some might say it wouldn’t be worth it. But then they wouldn’t have can-openered their way to magic. I guess that’s for all of us to decide. Me, I hope I will try to make the most of each moment. What else do we have?
My grandma’s basement was filled with preserves. I was too young to see all the work. We were all shooshed outside when the knives were brought out. When the pots began to boil. The sweet scent of nature’s sugar wafted through the open farmhouse windows and curled under our noses, leading us round and round the house like we were cartoon characters being led by the mystique of color and magic. It was only after the sticky aprons were washed, after the jars had cooled, after they were stacked in a row on basement shelves, that I got to touch them. All those fruitful colors. I gently ran my hand across the glassed blend of oranges and reds and yellows. I thought maybe the colors would enter through my fingertips and up my arms, directly into my heart, and all that magic beyond the apron would enter into me.
It did.
Before moving to France, I never made bread, nor jams. But I suppose that’s the beauty of magic — it is patient — there for you when you’re ready. Our fruit trees are ripening. I made my first batch of Confiture de pêches (peach jam). The kitchen is summer warm, as Grandma Elsie scoots beneath the open windows, magically dancing, beyond my aproned heart.
