I have purchased them, found them, painted them even — these bookmarks. This way to signify where I’ve been, where I’m headed. This perfect way to keep moving forward. If only I, we, had the same way to mark our every day lives.
I think of how many times I have learned lessons again and again. Going back in chapter to retain the information. Oh, yes, I think, I’ve learned this for the last time, and yet…here I am thumbing backwards. Worrying the same old worries. Replaying the words someone said. Until my heart finally says, as loud as it can, over the words written on brain, “Move on. Read on. There’s so much more!” And it’s always sweeter. Life. My story. When I do. When I take the mark from the page, lay it beside me, just out of reach, and continue the story.
I’ve said it before, it’s good to rest. To place the bookmark gently. Breathe. Sleep. Smile. Dream even. But we must never give up. There’s so much more to learn. To see. To love. To share. So much of the story awaits.
I painted this bookmark of Maya Angelou. She says, “When you know better, do better.” Yes, I smile, and turn the page.
From the moment she introduced the assignment to the class, I had a plan. It wouldn’t be hard to find a shoe box to make the diorama. My mom loved shoes. She had a closet full of them.
Mrs. Bergstrom told us that we were going to make a “slice of life” — capture a miniature moment. We could do anything. She suggested scissors and cardboard and paint and crayons. Glue of course, Elmer’s. My head was spinning. Oh, how I loved to make things.
There was an hour after I got off the bus before my mom got home from work. I could have waited. I should have waited. But my seven year old self whispered, then shouted, “Don’t wait!” I opened my mother’s closet and took out the first box in reach. I took out the shiny shoes neatly resting head to toe in tissue paper. I’d like to think There was a moment I think, I hope, that I thought of keeping them wrapped in the tissue paper, but then that shouting self said it might be useful for my diorama — “If you colored it blue and crinkled it up, glued it to the box, it could be one of our 10,000 lakes.” The shoes were left naked on the floor.
I was knee deep, literally, in cuts and folds and colors by the time my mom got home. I was all smiles when I looked up at her from her bedroom floor. Holding the cut-out of myself.
She didn’t return a look of delight like I was expecting. No, it was a look I had never seen before. Deflation. I had been so busy trying to create my own slice, that I forgot about hers.
“It’s my slice of life…” I said sheepishly. She nodded. “And also mine,” she added. She helped me pick up the mess. Put it all on the kitchen table. She wasn’t mad. She even helped me finish. But I knew at that moment, it wasn’t all about me. I took special care to add lovely shoes to the figure that represented her in my tiny box. We were in this together.
I painted a bookmark yesterday of Maya Angelou. At the top are her words, “Then when you know better, do better.” It’s a good reminder for me. It’s simple, but so worth repeating. We are not alone in this life. We would do well to remember as we wander through each other’s dioramas. The word itself in French means, “through that which is seen.” My mother saw me. And I saw her. And oh, how she she made me, still makes me, want to do better.
It’s no secret that I read a lot. Often they make the books into movies. Often I’m disappointed. For me, the words seem to paint a more realistic picture. A vivid representation of the person or people inside the story. Not tainted or swayed by the pressures of Hollywood. I wonder when we were first sold the idea that people, in order to be a hero, or heroine, had to “look the part.” I, I say with great fortune, have lived a life to the contrary.
I have written about so many that have saved me through the years. Mr. Whitman, the caretaker of the cemetery, dirtied and slumped from the weight of burying the people from town. My grandfather, callused hand reaching behind his stained overalls to bring me along, bring me through. Chubbied Grandmother wiping kitchen hands on apron, just to give us something sweet. Wearied teachers, still finding a way to say the words that just might carry us. Tear-stained mother who laughed with unfaltering grace.
So it came as a surprise to me, the woman in New York standing in front of my portrait of Maya Angelou — a sage I return to again and again. She read the words and seemed to be moved. She praised them. I thanked her. She wanted to buy copies, but whispering sheepishly now, “maybe without the picture.” Whispering even lower now, “you know, maybe she could be a bit polarizing to my customers.”
I laughed. How ironically and completely opposite of the words that she claimed to love.
Kindness. Truth. Beauty. Wisdom. Hope. Leadership. Strength. Love. It comes in all sorts of “packaging.” Each a gift.
Maya would have forgiven her. As she always said, “When we know better, we do better.” I put the words and paintings before you, before myself, daily, in the hopes of doing just that… better.
I began mixing up the bread dough this morning. The first thing I have to do is to proof the yeast (to make sure that it actually does what it claims it can). If it’s good, with a little sugar and warm water, it will show you exactly what it is capable of. And when it works, rises up to meet you, you’re good to continue.
Maya Angelou said, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” People will often say, after doing something wrong, “Oh that’s not who I am…” Or after being mistreated by someone, say, “It’s ok, that’s not who they are…” I’m sure I have been guilty of both. I’m sure we all have. But Maya was right. People will show you who they are, again and again. Some good. Some very bad. And the key is to believe them. To stop asking for proof when someone is kind to you. To stop aking for proof when they are not.
Last week, when making bread, for the first time in a long while, the yeast didn’t work. I threw it away and started with some new yeast. It never would have occured to me to try and proof it again — it told me right from the start — “I’m not going work.” Maybe it’s a bit harder to see in humans, but it’s still there, usually right in front of us. We just have to be willing to see it. Embrace the good. Walk away from the bad.
I want to be better at this — be who I claim to be — who I want to be. And see others for the truth that they offer. What if we all did that? Offered the world proof that we truly can rise up!
