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.
People from miles around envied the swings on our playground at Washington Elementary. And by people, I mostly mean the other grade-schoolers up the street at St. Mary’s. Those at LIncoln School had their own, but I imagine they were still impressed. The chains were so long. And the straps of the seats didn’t cut into your thighs. They were perfection. And placed as they were, after pumping for several minutes, and perhaps aided with a slight push from behind from your best friend who dared the thrust of your return, if you stretched your legs at the height of your swing, it appeared as if you were climbing atop the roof of the school. What a thrill to reach that height. And it was that thrill of being lifted that made my stomach jump to my throat, and gave me the courage to face anything the school would offer after the ringing of the recess bell.
Imagine my delight, the first time it happened without the aid of chain links and gravity. I had just cut my finger on the very razor blade in the kitchen bureau that my grandma told me not to touch. It was my heart that sank first. Not because it hurt that badly, but because I was sure she would no longer love me. Still operating under the rudimentary conditions of the playground, where friends were lost and gained in one recess, I started to cry. She wiped her ever dish soaped hands on her apron and knelt before me. Walked me to the bathroom sink and cleaned my minor wound on my finger, but the one on my heart remained. I was still small enough to be shattered, but too big to be carried, so she walked me to grandpa’s recliner. She sat down first, making that happy sound of a cushion expanding. She told me to stand in front. She grabbed the wooden lever on the side, and with that one swoop, she launched the recliner’s leg, and lifted me off of mine into her lap. My belly jumped, along with my heart, and I could only laugh. I knew I could face anything, as long as she loved me.
Even typing this, my belly races to my heart, and I am saved.
It was no small feat to gather the animals and dolls each summer morning to go for my walk in Hugo’s field. I had just enough to fill my brother’s hand-me-down red wagon. But I didn’t place them directly inside, the bottom was too rusty. In my brother’s defense, he didn’t care for “babies,” but hauled tools to build his own scooter in the shed. He was not concerned with the orange residue that could easily ruin a baby’s dress or an animal’s fur coat. To protect their delicate nature, I placed my best blankets from Ben Franklin underneath them. And to protect the blankets, underneath I put sheets from last week’s Alexandria Echo Press.
When everything and everyone was situated, out of rust’s way, off we would go into Hugo’s field. I imagined they were afraid, (only imagining because I felt it myself), so I would sing to them, sing to me. And the music always cleared the path. Even in the overgrown wheat, we walked on, lifted by each note, careful only to clear the way, and not damage the growth (Hugo reminded me of this, and rarely in song.)
Yesterday, for the first time, I heard a choir singing my words. A poem I had written was made into a song. As they sang, I felt the tears of tenderness drop gently on my legs’ goosebumps. With the choral field, I was clear, out of rust’s way.
I don’t know how to save the world, I’m not sure anyone does. But maybe along the way, we could make the journey a little lighter. Chase away the daily fear, with blankets and a song. Never to damage, but continue the path. In my youthful optimism, I can hear the choir sing.
Daughters have been losing their mothers for thousands of years. Yet, when it happens to you, it feels like this must be the first time. The only time. Surely no one has felt this pain and survived. No one has felt this pain and gotten up the next day to a sun that says you have to keep going, and did that, in the clear of all that light, kept going…but they have and they did, and they do. And I want to tell her that I am one of them, just as she is now. And I want to tell her – this sister-in-law of mine – that it gets better, but does it? What is this better? I’m not sure what that even means. And it’s hard to make sense of anything… and certainly if I could make sense, how could she even hear it? Because nothing makes sense when the one that gave you life, and not just on one day, but again and again, is no longer living. The woman that dabbed skinned knees with a touch that no one else could master…who will now touch that heart that feels scraped raw? And I want to tell her you get stronger, and you do, but even typing the words I have to take my fingers from the keyboard and hold my own heart. And I am not even a thousand days away from this, what women have been doing for thousands of years, what she has been doing now for thousands of minutes.
And I have reread my mother’s emails a thousand times. And reached for the phone as many. And tears have fallen 7 x 1000. And that sun keeps rising. And I keep painting and writing. And hugging and laughing. And walking and loving. And learning. And with these thousands of daughters, and sons, all living with this missing, I, we, have found that it is possible, carrying this hole, to be whole. To love this life a thousand times over.
The first time I met my sister-in-law’s mother, my feet were off the ground. I had just entered the family home. I met her eyes, and before I was introduced, she had me locked in an embrace. Leveraged against her ample – ample everything, chest, belly, heart, spirit, laughter — she within seconds was holding me in the air of the kitchen. As my feet dangled, I understood that Monique was blessed with a mother who knew how to lift with love amplified. And she will still. Find a way to carry Monique. In thousands of ways. Maybe this is what I can tell her. Maybe this is the only thing that makes sense, this constant lifting of each other. Love can do that. For the next thousand years.
“I know you’re thinking, ‘anyone could have done it,’ and you’re right, everyone can, just not everyone does… But you did, you do…”
It’s a quote from my book about friendship. It’s something, to be lifted by someone. Sometimes it’s obvious, a full body wrap around the waist, holding you up. Or just as easily it could be a smile. A wave. A Wordle score sent daily. And the thing is, we get to decide, and then do it!
And it’s easy to get stuck on, “Well someone should…” — and then you realize, I am someone. Someone who can. I suppose it’s as simple as, if you want to get an email, you need to send one. The same goes for a hug. A hand. A heart. Because the roles can and will be reversed, at any given moment.
If you’re expecting someone to help lift your dreams, you have to be willing to dream them. Maybe it sounds risky to some, but I think the real risk is in doing nothing. And so I painted this woman. Long before I knew she would be larger than life on The Great Wall of Honesdale. But she has been lifted. And so have I. I hope just seeing her, it does the same for you. We can all be dreamers. Givers. Friends. I don’t want to miss out on any of it.
When you see her on that wall, or in the mirror, I want you to think, to know, “You did! You do!”
It was very subtle. I walked past the marker twice. I asked two people. Finally the third pointed it out, and still it took me a minute. Then I saw it – One mile above sea level. I smiled. Maybe it’s the way of all elevation.
I write daily of the things that have lifted me. Lift me still. Little things my grandpa said — “You can turn in, or you can turn out. It’s up to you.” My grandma — “You’ll figure it out as you go along.” My mother… there are not enough steps a mile above sea level to show everything that she has etched on my heart.
As we travel, it’s always the little things that we talk about again and again. The things that we have seen — spectacular!!!! — but truth be told, I don’t recall ever saying, “Remember the Colosseum…” No, it’s the little things we talk about, as we drive mile after mile through the prairies. Like the moment in Springfield, Illinois… when we went to the wrong library, (in our defense, both named Lincoln). We entered the public library, thinking it was the Presidential Library. It had kids’ cut outs on the wall. The front desk. Books of course. Your typical public library. Both hesitating, Dominique spoke first — “It’s not very Lincolny…”. I bent over in laughter. He joined me. We haven’t stopped laughing since. It fills many empty miles. Lifts us.
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. It’s the little things. Surround yourself with those who see it. Feel it. Those that lift you with words, heart, laughter and action. Be that kind of person. I guarantee you, it will always be a big deal.
It’s odd to think of Christmas in this French summer heat, but there it was, along my daily gravel path. The color of the wild flowers against the sea of green — the same combination my friend Deb used for her Christmas decorations.
Lounging in our chairs at the Starbuck’s near my apartment, drinking extra-hot vanilla lattes in the still-welcomed air conditioning of the lingering September summer, we thumbed through the Jonathan Adler catalog, already dreaming of Christmas. We could never start too early. We both loved decorating for the holidays. It was here, eleven years ago, that she changed her color palette. And a bold palette it was. More pink than red. More yellow than green, but still a nod to the tradition. Each holiday piece that she put out was in this new palette. Right down to the candy purchased in Stillwater, Minnesota.
With French pebbles still in the soles of my shoes, I stepped directly into her apartment. The familiar scent of candles. The corner tree blinking. Shelled pistachios next to chocolate covered in a deep pink candy shell. (Ever in the palette.) And just like with the catalog, we went through her apartment and pointed out, praised, loved each and every detail.
If you think this all shallow, you would be wrong. Because I knew what this break from the traditional palette meant. I knew what not fitting into the norm of it all felt like for her, for me, (for so many). I knew the pain she had suffered losing her husband first to mental illness, then divorce. The jobs she had lost. The lifestyle she tried to regain. The navigating of keeping tradition for her son, creating a new life for herself. I knew her colors, inside and out. She was my friend.
And isn’t it just like a friend to show up with a wink and smile, lifting your heart and heat weary feet on a gravel path. I suppose that’s what real friends do, at any time, any distance, they show you their true colors, and allow you to walk in yours.
If you see a spring in my step, you know I had such a friend.
