I learned quickly on that you don’t tell a farmer, “I have nothing to do.”
We weren’t allowed to be bored on Rueben and Elsie’s farm. And truth be told, there really was no reason to be. Trees to climb and gardens to race. Barns to explore. Cows to annoy. Cupboards to climb into. Lazy Susans to spin. Party lines to listen in on. A balcony to jump off. An electric fence to dare. Flowers to make into dolls. Grass to stain knees. Gravel to collect in shoes. Stairs to count. Overalls to climb into. Dropped off for a summer day, my mother could leave me without prompts.
Writing my daily blog, I ignore the supplied suggestions. Why would I want to write what everyone else was writing? Live like everyone else was living?
Years ago I wrote, “It isn’t that something comes along and gives you a reason to get out of bed. You have to get out of bed and go find that reason, everyday.” It’s ever how I want to live.
I see my grandpa’s portrait on the wall in front of me as I write this. I smile and ready myself to race around today’s barn.
It’s a bread baking morning. I’m still surprised at the act. How much I love the bread. How I adore that the house smells like home. And mostly that I’m someone who has the patience to wait for the rise.
And maybe that’s unfair. Perhaps we are way too quick to label people. To pull out the “never” cards. She never does that. He will never do this. How do we know when we are young, (or at any stage in our lives for that matter) what we will do, what we are capable of doing? So I’ve decided to try and replace never with not yet. Giving myself the opportunity to keep becoming. And the hardest part, having the patience to allow the transformations. To wait for the rise.
You’d think just the attempt to learn that in itself would serve as the reminder, but I must admit, I do need the bread. As I cover the half empty bowl, I smile and know that I’m not where I’ve been, I’m not where I’m going, but I am on my way.
The sun hits the towel that coddles the bowl that holds the dough. And so I rise.
I can honestly say I never knew the name of this song, even though for the better part of a decade it was an anthem for my mother. She, we, always referred to it as that “what a drag” song. The famous line goes, “I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You’d know what a drag it is to see you.” Play it again, she’d say. The empowerment given by this song that we couldn’t address by title, was palpable.
But that’s the thing, we don’t need to know or call things by name. We’re all going through something. We all have our “Fourth Street.” And we all have a choice. To cower, or to stand proudly. It was my mother who taught me to choose the song. To sing it out loud!
Yesterday in front of the large canvas, I stood strong and played the song over and over. All the moments of why we needed an anthem were gone, and the strength of having one remained. How could anything be more positive than that?
I looked up the title this morning — that makes sense I thought, and began making my way down the street. Positively fourth street.
Seeing the youthful paintings of Cezanne yesterday at the museum, I was reminded of the art of becoming. “Well, that doesn’t seem like him,” I thought, standing in front of a glossy-bright collage of color. Then I smiled, knowing that most of our travels to nearer ourselves, these roads are paved with exactly that.
It’s all in the framing, I suppose (pardon the pun). We can call it unseemly, or we can call it becoming. (I’m not sure how to have one without the other.) But didn’t we learn early on that “becoming” was a compliment? “Oh that’s so becoming on you!” And in hearing it, we’d clutch our imaginary pearls and will our hearts to keep on growing.
Looking through my own oeuvre, (entire body of work), oh, how my life has changed again and again. But it’s all me. From sketchbook to canvas. And I hope I allow myself the grace that I offer Cezanne — grace I hope to offer anyone — look at you becoming!
I’m not living in the country where I was born. Nor the “old country” that my grandparents frequently referenced. Of course they never called it by name, so I can’t be certain. Maybe farm tables knew. Or those that sat around them. (They absorbed so much.) And my young ears were eager to do the same. So I pressed my open face against all those tabled thoughts. Those directions. That knowledge of what was and what could be.
The wood whispered Uncle Wally’s stutter. Aunt Ellen’s worry. And captured some of my own thoughts, like why I didn’t call them “Great.” (I simply clumped them all into aunts and uncles.) Perhaps I was as unassuming as that table, soaking it all in too.
Like cracked wood I held on deeply. Suzan’s dream of becoming a movie star, or at least cleaning their pools. Cousin Chris wanting to be a Viking. The asthmatic breaths of Shawn and Pat. And would the weight of Aunt Kay’s husbands collapse the legs that I sturdied between my feet and beneath my head? And could I make it out the screen door, down the gravel driveway, past the fields, onto highways, into skies, all while the same?
Have they all become my “old country?” I wipe the lavender honey from our French breakfast table, being sure not to knock away the whispers.
Once she realized that “soon” was no more real than “a long time ago,” — that she could just be in it, this shouldered and weightless grace — there was no more worry of where it had flown, or if it would fly away, it just was…and she was… What a relief to be feathered this way. Not to be ready, but simply be, and know that it was ok.
She smiled at the slyness of this effortless grace, not asking for it to remain, (because certainly grace needed no request) but hoping that she could, that she would… Be.
As much as I was outside when I was young, I never enjoyed nor entertained the idea of getting dirty. I was saved by the outdoor hose on numerous occasions, as the lengthy trip through the garage, then down the stairs into the laundry room to wash would have been far too much to bear.
So when Mrs. Paulson first introduced us to the subject of empathy in the fourth grade as “walking around in someone else’s shoes,” you can imagine my despair. Shoeless after winter recess, our footwear neatly tucked into the cubbies along the wall, her introduction to this compassion seemed permission to one of the boys in the back, as he raced to cram his still damp-footed socks into a pair of the girly shoes. Amid the laughter, she ushered him firmly by the elbow back to his seat.
To my extraordinary relief, she went on to explain that the shoes were simply a metaphor. It was our stories, the history that we walked around in. This is what we were to share. Maybe it was the relief of this knowledge, or maybe I was just meant for this. Either way, I’ve been sharing my story ever since. And the greatest gift of all has been listening to yours.
Barefoot in the studio yesterday, I began painting this woman. Fueled by the new book that I’m reading, Kin, I had the need to put a face to the story. I wiggled my toes upon the cool floor as she came to life. And it was Mrs. Paulson, feathered and perched upon her shoulder, that told me again of this magical gift. This empathy.
I washed my brushes with the summer hose outside the door. And I was saved.
Of course we had done it with our toys. Our halloween candy. It was transactional and it made sense, this emptying of pockets and putting on the front stairs to distribute with neighborhood girls. A thing for a thing. But everything changed the first day of kindergarten at Washington Elementary. When Mrs. Strand said we were going to “share with the class,” a rustling through pockets and Trapper Keepers could be heard. Were we supposed to bring something? Worried and empty stooped, I sat in panic.
It didn’t turn out to be a thing at all. It was a verbal exchange of our summers. (No one referred to it as summer vacation, because we had yet to do something to vacation from.) When we knew the drill, oh, weren’t our pockets once again full! We spoke of lakes and bicycles. Softball games and skinned knees. Bugs and porch lamps and moms calling for dinner. We had so much to share.
I suppose I haven’t stopped since. The thrill of the exchange has never left.
Moving to France, there was so much uncertainty. Not knowing the culture, the language. Even the color palette was different. There was, I must admit, a lot of “pocket checking.” Did I have anything to offer?
I first heard the word at the dining table. I offered Charles a large piece of a cake that I had made. It was the last piece. He looked at me and asked, “Partager” (did I want to share?) I did. Everything.
I began painting those around me. The world around me. Immersed myself in the palette of Provence. My heart is full. There is so much to share.
Ever since Erma Bombeck told my mother (along with her million other readers) to burn the candles, I, too, have tried not to “save for something special,” but instead see it in the very moment.
As a practice, it has become so much easier through the years. Trying to remove the judgement of “deserving,” — because this is an impossible standard. Taking out the worthiness, and exchanging it for gratitude, works a little better for me. Maybe I deserve the two new brushes I bought the other day, but thinking that way makes me hesitate. Should I wait for the special painting? Is my panel worth? Am I worthy? That’s dangerous territory, especially if the answer is yes. Instead, yesterday, I pulled off the plastic cover, felt the new smooth of ready, and smiled, feeling lucky that I did indeed have a new brush and a free afternoon — this in itself was “something special!”
I began Erma-ing my way across the panel. Is it newsworthy? Again, not for me to decide. I only mention it because it felt, you know, kind of special.
I suppose you could track everything back. Starting with sketches in my bedside Big Chief notebook. To Mr. Opsahl’s art class in Washington Elementary. But to be honest. I didn’t have grandiose plans for it all. I was just trying to stave off a Sunday night homework worry. Or brighten a school day afternoon. But that’s the thing about steps, the smallest of ones, even when you’re not aware, they’re still lifting you.
This little pink bird was the first in my sketchbook. I had no idea how many it would lead to. How they would transform into something larger. But the intent was there — Noting here I can’t rise above. And somewhere, within this attempt to rise, I was gracefully being lifted.
And that little pink bird crescendoed into this 5’ portrait of a woman ready, willing, to take flight. And I’d like to think, if this tiny little bird could do that, that maybe I, we, could do the same. I guess it all comes down to taking that first step.
