Grandpa Rueben explained that he had to move the cows or they would keep eating until their stomachs burst. My cousins and I would laugh. What a sight! “The cows bursting in air!” We thought they were so stupid. How could they ever let that happen?And yet, I find myself in the rockets red glare of a dwindling bag of Twizzlers, wondering who will move me to pastures new.
The thing is, we think we know. So certain that if it happened to us we would do it differently. And then… knee deep in the situation, things become a little more clear. Maybe we didn’t know. Maybe we understand a little better. Maybe we judge a little less.
I’d like to think we only had to learn that once. This empathy. But no. I suppose the best we can hope for is a faster journey to pastures new — that we can come to the understanding a little quicker each time. And perhaps in this new field, “they” becomes “we”, and kindness is the only thing that fills us.
There is a hungry woman at my table each morning and it is me. I don’t know why it seems new. This same wood. These same chairs. Why should I be surprised by this bread? I made it with my own hands. But it IS new. I am new. And it feeds me with the chance, moving from table to tablet, the chance that I will put the words in a different order today, and somehow you will know all that I meant to say. Maybe they will push away the struggle, or broom a path. Tickle a wanting rib. Or maybe simply sit gently beside your expectant heart. I know most will scroll by. And that’s ok. Other words are calling. But who would I be if I didn’t try? We have to try. Believing that small difference, is still different. Small kindness is still kind. Small steps are still movement. So I type on. Hope on. And the page is not blank. And this day is not wasted. The lavender honey on this morning’s bread fuels the offered and open blank — telling me that pages weren’t meant to be followed, but written.
“I want to leave as few pages blank as possible.” Virginia Woolf
The music was playing loudly in the studio, Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” She came to see me paint, my soon to be mother-in-law. Both being brand new, me to this language and she to sharing her son once again, we struggled to find something to say. I was so delightfully surprised when she joined them in the chorus. “Lie-la-lie, Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie…” She clapped along. Whirled her hands in a motion to tell me to play it again. I did. Twice. She touched my canvas (the nearest thing to my heart) and smiled. She made a motion like one would asking for the check at a restaurant. I gave her a pencil and paper, and she went back to the house.
I found a note on my desk later. She wrote it in her best English. The words are mine, but I will tell you she welcomed me to this family.
It was only a few years later. We weren’t prepared for things to be brand new again. I suppose one never is. Losing her memory, she needed the special care of assisted living. It was still new enough that she could tell the difference. She knew what was happening. Tears fell like drops of paint down the canvas of her face. I took out my phone and played “The Boxer.” She smiled, not with joy, but enough to say, “the fighter still remains.”
We fill the car with music as we travel from state to state. When Simon and Garfunkel sing this song, I can hear heaven’s clapping “in the clearing.” We head toward the daily brand new.
Slipping and clinging to the silky nyloned leg of my mother, slowly navigating table by table of no doubt excellent food in this potluck feast, still searching, longing, hoping to pass somewhere near the comfort of my mother’s dish — this is perhaps the best way I can explain what it’s like to begin navigation in another country.
In so many ways, you become a child again. Everything is new. You struggle to form grade-school sentences at the grown-ups table. Some will speak slowly, loudly, like your handicap isn’t limited to just the language. You’ll hear the dreaded, “It can’t be translated…” — the equivalent of “one day you’ll understand…” And you wish for the speed of this understanding. And within that wish, without your childish knowledge or permission, time passes in a blur. And suddenly your new wish is that it all slows down.
I continue to learn the language. Set the table. And I taste the food. Even make the food. And I can see it now, not as a handicap, but a gift. I get to be a child again. It is not out of fear, but joy, that I get to say, “Everything is new!”
We visited the Sainte Victoire Mountain again the other day. Climbing to Cezanne’s viewpoint, complaining about the noise of the nearby weed wackers, step by step the park didn’t seem all that special, and I turned around to say something to Dominique, but the words were sucked away by wonder as I saw it, again and for the first time, this beautiful view! The Sainte Victoire! Not only was it so very special, but I felt special, because I got to, get to, see it as a child. The struggle is the gift. And for one slow and glorious second, time had no hold, no power, I breathed, blinked, and I thought, “Look, Mommy, I’m here!”
I don’t think it’s too spot on that this city is called New — New York. Every time I come here it does feel new, and probably more importantly, so do I! “Ok,” I ask myself, “what are you going to see, learn, create from all of this?” Because it’s easy to lose the magic. Magic relies on both the magician and the viewer – you have to want to see it. And, oh, how I want to see it, be it! I always have – probably because I grew up with a magician.
When I was a little girl, we heard the tales of New York, Paris… heard that everyone dresses up there — everything is elevated. I’ve been to both cities, many, many times, and it may not be completely true any more, not for everyone, but I still believe in it — this dressing for success — I suppose my mother taught me that. And it was never about “putting on airs”, it was more about being good enough, and I don’t mean for “them,” (whoever they are) I mean proving to yourself that you are in fact good enough, good and enough, more than enough to walk along, beside, within, outside, along, every day in this world.
When I was a teenager, inside our humble apartment, each morning before 7am, my mother worked her own magic. She pulled out a neatly hung ensemble from her small bedroom closet, freshly ironed, and got dressed for the Superintendent’s Office of School district 206. She was tall and thinned by angry words that no woman should ever hear. But she was beautiful. Beautiful because she made the choice to release herself from the pain, and become new! She made the choice, every day, to present her best self. And I smiled and cheered, front row.
So today I will walk down this New York street with my head held high, out of respect for my mother, my self, and this magical new day!!!! As the song says, “It’s a new dawn, a new day, it’s a new life, and I’m feelin’ good!”
I was born in the springtime, every year. I can’t say that I’ve ever been much for New Year’s Eve. Sure, I’ll enjoy a glass of champagne and kiss in the beginning of the coming year, but for me, it doesn’t hold the magic of spring.
When the birds start to sing a little louder, the light lasts a little longer, the trees open up their branches in bloom, this, this for me, is intoxicating.
Our apricot and plum trees are covered in flowers. It is pure art. Coy as the Mona Lisa smile, the bloom says, well, I promised, and here I am. They just can’t stop smiling, and neither can I. I want to clean fresh, create new, enjoy every moment of this life. I am born again, for the first time and I too want to bloom.
The air smells not just clean, but sweet, and I feel lighter. Each step has just a bit of a bounce and I know none of it is to be wasted. I want, I need, to take that bounce and toss it against the page, the canvas, the hearts around me and follow it wherever it leads. I, we, get another fresh start. What a gift! I skip to the song of the birds, and know that I am new.
