The bag of Twizzlers they brought from the US could easily fit into a small bassinet, and I coddle it to my breast with a love worthy of the same. It’s not just because I love the taste of the candy. Or that I can’t get Twizzlers in France. Not just because I know they love it too. Or that I know the drawer where they keep a rotating bag in their home. I suppose it’s all of these things that make up the language of friendship.
And now, just as I know how far it is from recliner to licorice in their home, they will be able to picture me enjoying it in every room here in France. The great exchange.
People always say, “no strings attached,” — but I don’t think it applies to red licorice vines.
When I go to the studio today, on a bit of a sugar high, everything will seem fresh and new, because yesterday, love walked through.
Standing in front of the bird in the hand, he asked me what was the English word for perspective. Perspective, I said. He smiled, not having to learn another word. I smiled because not only was he speaking in my mother tongue, we were talking about art — my love language.
We are meant to connect. I believe it.
So many things can divide us. Learning a new language, I suppose, is like opening yourself up to a whole new perspective. You can focus on all the differences, but the weight of that can be unbearable. Nothing is lighter than joy. And landing on a word, a phrase, focusing on the common, the similar, the connection — this, weighing almost nothing at all, can lift us, higher than we ever imagined alone.
Sometimes the “bird in the hand” (the gift) is simply the fact that we’re reaching out at all. Just a thought from this bird brain.
While most of the kids on Van Dyke Road were told each morning to “get dressed,” it was my mother who told me simply, quietly, to “dress.” I learned the difference quite early on. To get dressed was merely to cover. Anyone can do that, she said. We were dressing. Completing an ensemble. A package of self-esteem and self fulfilling prophecy. I watched from bathroom to closet to full length mirror. Proof that what she was saying was true, as it carried her with style and grace daily to Independent School district #206.
I dressed to go into Aix yesterday. We just had a few errands, but I made sure I was belted, smoothed and scarved. Approaching the other side at the first crossing into the city, she smiled at me and said that I was “Très Élégant.” I clutched my imaginary pearls and thanked her, feet no longer touching the ground. I’m not sure how long I floated, (I’ll tell you if I stop). Of course a compliment feels wonderful, and it will always lift you. (Never underestimate the power of a compliment.) But it was more than that. The smiling woman, the complimenting woman, she was wearing a ruffled blouse, a crisp, white ruffling Ivy blouse. Proof, once again.
I googled it. It turns out you don’t need a certain shape to your lips in order to play the flute. Maybe it was because we didn’t have Google in the fifth grade, or maybe they just needed to fill out the woodwind section, but I was told I didn’t have the proper lip for the flute that I so desired, and that I would be better suited for the clarinet. Upon Mr. Iverson’s authority in the Washington School gymnasium, I signed up to play the clarinet in the band.
Some decisions get made for you.
I learned to love the clarinet. I still have mine. It stands proudly in our library. (No flute could do that on its own.) I haven’t thought about that day in years. Decades even. But as I was painting her small portrait, focusing on the lips, I thought, “She can play the flute if she wants.”
I didn’t go on to play the clarinet after high school. I never made it past second chair. I’m not sure my life would have turned out much differently had I played the flute.
Playing the clarinet in the band at the basketball games, I sat next to Janie who played the flute. It was her father that would take out my appendix later that year. And after losing weight from said surgery, my mom would take me to Fleet Farm, and buy for me my first pair of painter’s pants. Was it all meant to be? Probably.
There are so many turns and twists and decisions that get us to WHERE we are, but with any luck, I suppose, we remain WHO we are. The music plays in the south of France, and I begin a new portrait. I am what I am.
Charles returned on his first break from university. He showed us pictures of his campus and classrooms. The problems written across the blackboards were nothing short of Good Will Hunting. My eyes rolled at my brain, which was challenged enough from translating English to French. These scribbles and tweeks and solve-fors seemed beyond language. Had this Matt Damon always sat so loosely on our sofa? What a smarty pants, I thought. And then I thought, people who are actually that smart wouldn’t say smarty pants, nor probably know the outline of this film playing in my head. And then I thought, stop thinking and pay attention, not unlike what I said to myself while taking my own classes long ago.
We all have our own currency. It’s foolish to measure against anyone else. It’s foolish not to use everything you have.
I stared at the photos he clicked through on the television. These giant tableaus were no longer “problems”, but works of art. Because this was his art. I could see how excited he was. To show them — these Pollacked masterpieces hanging in his museum of learning. Seeing his passion to solve, I understood. I relaxed into my chair, and finished the tour.
He was never going to stay this size. He was never meant to. But there was a moment, a joyful moment, in this living room, we all sat loosely.
I have spent my life daring the blue dress, long before I was ready to dance. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been ready for anything. (Can anyone be?) Mostly I think I’ve just started.
Uncertain, I have eased my head through. Let it drop over nervous shoulders. I have turned on the record player. Let the music travel from ears to fingers, as I slipped into the black hose. And I have braced my nervous heart with arms over ribs that simply couldn’t be trusted. And without my knowledge or permission, the blue begins to blur, and there is no more getting ready — I AM a dancer.
If we waited for the perfect time, we’d never do anything. There is no sure that gets us over the edge. No certainty. And if there were, would there be any reason to continue? This is what I tell myself in the jitters of it all. The nervousness is simply a dance.
And so I begin. I wiggle my shoulders. My toes. And I am move a little easier through the blue.
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 remember watching America’s Next Top Model (Yes, I did. Don’t judge me.) There was one specific moment that stuck with me all of these years. The host Tyra Banks, became frustrated with this certain model. Of course she was a beautiful woman, but she was coming off “dead” in the photographs. Tyra pleaded with her, “Think of something! Anything!”
While it makes me laugh, there is so much truth behind it. We are at our most beautiful when we show who we are.
The paintings I love the most, that I consider the most successful, are those that evoke a feeling. The story that comes to life when you view it. The story that you then share back to me. This exchange brings life to the painting, but most importantly, to all of us.
I don’t know what the day will bring. It could be something! It could be anything! Isn’t that beautiful?
Some days it took as little as wearing an LBD to feel like a superhero. While some may write this off as shallow, I say it is the brilliant understanding of your own power. Finding it wherever you can.
It’s no mistake that my mother found it in her lipstick. I continued her evangelism in a book and on my face. Going to the Sephora here in France yesterday, I asked for assistance, and while she helped me in French, we both knew we were speaking the same language — The mother tongue. And it being one of those days, many applications were required.
In full make-up and my apron (a nod, I suppose, to both my mother and grandmother), I went to the studio to paint. Completing this study in oils, the last thing was to give her clothing. I had already supplied her with the rouge, but just to be sure, I painted a little black dress. And in saving her, I more than saved myself.
It’s ironic, I suppose, that in my daily efforts to absorb the French culture, I can often appear (although you wouldn’t know it to look at me) somewhat German. They have a saying, “nah am Wasser gebaut sein,” which literally means “to be built close to the water.” It describes someone who cries easily, gets teary-eyed quickly, or is very sensitive. Even with all of my grandmother’s “Swede,” I, being born in the land of 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, clearly resemble that remark, both literally and figuratively. I like having the words for it now, even in German.
I was never afraid of the water, neither wave nor tear. My mother saw to that. She drove me to swimming lessons in the dead of winter at the community indoor pool. And she dried my long blonde hair afterwards, somewhat frozen waiting only briefly for her in the parking lot. And just as important, she taught me the strength of being able to show my emotions. Tears of tenderness she called them. Never weakness. So much strength. Even joy. She saw me through the winters of all living.
I’m proud of where I “was built.” No matter where I am, it is where I will be, close to the tender water.
