Working between two screens, sometimes my cursor gets stuck in the opposite one that I want. (Like my brain doesn’t do that all the time.)
It’s so easy to think, “Well, I always did it this way…” Whether I’m talking about different countries, different languages, loves, relationships, even my hairdresser. And I catch myself swiping madly on the wrong screen.
Change is never easy. Neither growth. But both are so necessary. And it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything in the letting go, the moving on…You keep the lightest of things, like joy and hope and love — none of these will ever weigh you down.
Too often I’m unaware. It’s barely more than air, the little birdie that tells me things. But when I’m paying attention, really paying attention, all the truths that move between who I am and who I want to be, chirp seamlessly between my heart and my brain, and I am saved.
To be so filled with life that it has to flush from your very pores. Cheeks ruddy and ever ready. I suppose we all think it will last forever — sure that our feet will keep the deal that youth has made. But maybe it’s the heart that takes over. (Or maybe it led all along.) Maybe it’s the heart that drags us from spring’s mud into summer’s bliss. Maybe it’s the heart that races through grass’s morning dew again and again, and lifts us up from green knees when we fall, ever promising to keep our cheeks flushed through autumn. Through winter.
Every time I paint a face, I feel the colors in my own, flowing through my hands. And the corners of my mouth rise up, smiling, so happy to be a part of youth’s reddening still.
What will you do today, to remain in the race of summer?
I suppose the closest thing we had to an “influencer” when I was in college was the purchasing of a used book highlighted in bright yellow. Being on a tight budget, I was often subjected to what the previous student deemed important. Perhaps it was defiance, or simply making my own path, but armed with my own highlighter, pink, orange, anything other than yellow, I colored over and in my deepest connections to the word. By the time the next student, spending their last dime to earn an education, opened the textbook, it would have been completely highlighted. Just as it should be, I thought, because wasn’t it all important! Every word a path lit fluorescent.
And I think that’s our real responsibility, not to push or “influence,” but offer a light.
I’m reading a new book, This is Happiness, by Niall Williams. I’ve only just begun, but I am deep in the journey. This author demands that each word be walked carefully, like Hugo’s precious field behind our house on Van Dyke Road. No trampling through. Respectful of all that the ground had to yield, before and yet to come. With each paragraph, the golden crop brushes against my chubby thighs, leaving the safety of house toward the excitement of town. Tiptoeing out of youth, with its remains gathering in my shoes.
I suppose I am a highlighter of word, and memory, and heart. Because isn’t it all important? Isn’t it all important!! I walk the new morning. The gravel in my shoes answers a bright and glorious YES!
It was one of the greatest mysteries to me, the perfection of the rows in the fields. I knew nothing about farming, nor even driving, when I asked my grandpa how he did it. “I just see them,” he said. “But how do you not run over it all when you turn the corner? Or get out of line when you take a sip of coffee from the thermos between your feet?” “I know where I am, and I know where I need to be. It makes it very clear.” “That’s a lot to see,” I said, still not certain that I would be able to do it. “Will I be able to do it?” “This, probably not, but you’ll see what you need to see.” “How will I know?” He got on the tractor, and showed me.
I don’t know the exact moment it happened. How I found my row. My place. But I did. It all became so clear on the page and on the canvas. People ask me all the time — How do make them so real? How do you bring them to life? The truth is, I just see them. And it is my hope, that they see what I see, and others too… then they will know they are beautiful. That’s why I paint the portraits.
I can’t tell you how it happens. So I simply hop on my daily tractor, and write and paint, and I know, somehow, we’ll all find our way.
It made me laugh. Thinking of how I’m always trying to straddle two worlds. She was sitting at the outdoor cafe when I walked by. She was reading her English translation book, while eating Sushi and a bag of potato chips.
I suppose we never leave behind one place to get to the next. We carry all of our experiences. Some as rocks in shoes. Others as perfectly worn tread. Both gifts.
I’m reminded of the saying, “walk a mile in their shoes…”, but I wonder if that’s really necessary. Do we have to experience everything to be understanding? Isn’t it enough to know we’re all on a journey? Our victories and losses along the way will vary. But certainly, being human, we possess the wherewithal to know we’re all having them. Can’t we connect without “trading shoes”? (Because I don’t think we’d do it anyway.) What if we all just gathered in the skips and the stumbles? Shared the path…
I have been lost in translation too many times to count. In my own French way, I’ve ordered the “potato chips with the sushi” – just to try to fit in. Knowing how easily that door can close, I have to leave it open for others.
I don’t know if my smile relayed all of that as I passed by, but I hope so. She smiled in return. A little always gets through.
Van Dyke Road separated the two worlds. It was so magical how far crossing one small stretch of gravel could take me. The back of our house faced a sea of grain — Hugo’s field. And in a way, it was like swimming, running through the stalks at full chubby- legged-speed, arms stretched to each side, creating a golden wave. Across the road though, behind Weiss’s house, was a lake. Not a big one. Nor a clean one, of the 10,000 our state touted. We didn’t swim in it. So what was the allure? It had to be the dock.
Florence and Alvin had a big yard. Bonnie, the daughter, was so much older, that to me, she was just another adult. So there were no arms of youth waving me over to play. I would sneak along the shrub line. Roll down the manicured slope to the lake’s edge. I could hear the dock before I saw it. The wave rocked wood cracking gently. I took off one bumper tennis shoe and placed my lavender-white toes on the sun warmed plank. It was extraordinary. I have no memory of being a shoeless baby, but I imagine at some point some uncle or boisterous neighbor blew their warm breath on my rounded feet, and I knew, standing there, barefoot on Weiss’s dock, this must be exactly how it felt. I giggled like that infant and took off my other shoe.
I braved each crack to the end. My body craved what my feet already had, so I lay down and let it gather in my arms, legs and back. My fingers danced at my side in the tiny puddles of cool water that gathered in the wood’s unevenness. I don’t know if I saw all the beauty of these imperfections, but I’d like to think I did.
Who knows how long I stayed. Summer afternoons felt eternal. I guess in a way, they are. I can still rest in that warmth.
I have written so many times about swimming – in actual lakes. Lake Latoka was only a bike ride away. But just out my door, front and back, oh, how my heart and imagination swam. Daily. And maybe that’s what home is after all…this ability to dream in the comfort of shore.
She took the time to shovel a path. A driveway that wasn’t hers. A long one. Just so we would have an easy time with our luggage. But I suppose that’s the way with some people — they not only welcome you, they make it so easy to be their friend. They don’t just allow you in, but they clear a path.
And that’s not everyone. Not in this world of walls and division. So how do we get over? Get through? Maybe it’s just one message at a time. And the echoing of.
I have new cards coming out soon. I’ve made them for decades now. I don’t run out of words. Maybe I just write the ones I’d like to hear myself. (Sometimes we shovel alone.) They are just tiny greetings. Small words of hope. Encouragement. Joy. And they won’t clear a path for everyone, but if you’re reading this, I hope you can feel it. Maybe walk the path of this day a little easier, by walking in the echo of the gifts I have been given.
I was nervous to take the test. If I didn’t get it right, then what did anything mean? The podcaster explained how it would work. A professional author was being challenged by Artificial Intelligence. Both were given the same prompts. Each was to write a short story. Without giving away the authors, both stories were going to be played and it was up to us, the listeners, to guess between human and AI.
The first story began. Immediately specific and elegant. My heart quickly raised its hand with an “ooooo, ooooo,” convinced that it knew this had to be the human author. Hold on, my brain urged, but when they reached the part where, on the dating app, the man texted the woman that he made eye contact with the woodpecker that sat on the horse, simply to explain what sort of mountain biker he was, even my brain had to concede that this must be the human. (It sounds a little crazy without context, but it was delightful). The second story began. It had all the prompts. Contained the right words. Seemed grammatically efficient — so efficient that it was boring. One might say, artificial.
The podcaster began talking with the human author. Which one did you write? The first one, she answered. My all’s right with the world angels sang in perfect harmony. I shook my head in constant agreement when the podcaster said the second story – the AI one – lacked soul. Yes! I thought, maybe even out loud.
I am not afraid of AI. It will be able to perform all sorts of tasks. Quickly. Efficiently. I suppose what I am more afraid of are the humans that spew out, with the same ease and speed, words of hurt and destruction. Dehumanizing others, as if neither had a soul. And I am afraid of the humans that hear these words and simply fall in line.
For me, I’m not willing to throw it all away so quickly. It takes a long time to build a soul. And constant upkeep. I know I’m getting older. With a little grace, I hope I’m getting wiser. I know for sure that we have to begin and begin again. We have to trust in it, follow it, nurture it along the path, and when we find ourselves, shoes deep in gravel on the side of a mountain, the heart yelling, “ooooo, oooooo,” and the soul yelling, “Look, a woodpecker on a horse!” — we have to listen!
The brain agrees. Nods gently. Never breaking eye contact with the soul.
After finishing their portrait, I wasn’t sure that I would ever see them again. They didn’t even know I had done it. I carried the knowledge in my pocket, and a picture on my phone, and walked each day hoping to see them on the path. One day passed. Then three. Then a week. Knowing good news doesn’t really spoil, (and I was going to walk anyway) I made my loop each morning and afternoon.
Then I saw it. A flash of his white hat just around the bend. I scrolled quickly through my phone. Had my photo at the ready. They smiled, already surprised that I had stopped them – “excusez-moi-ed” into their journey. I went quickly through the list I had run over in my head — artist, painting, portrait — and I showed them the photo. “Fantastique!” And let me sound it out for you — Fan-tas-TEEK! I play it over in my head daily. I told them I would give it to them. The younger of the two told me that they walk on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The next Monday, I packed it up and went for my walk. I didn’t see them. I brought it back home. On Tuesday, I went empty handed in the afternoon and climbing the hill, an elderly woman pulled up slowly in her car. My first thought was, oh know, she’s going to want directions, and want them in French. Still, I took out my earpod as she rolled down her window. She asked if I was the artist. Relief turned into joy. Yes, I beamed. It was a fast jumble of her husband spoke about it all weekend and where was I Monday and they will be walking on Wednesday…and I couldn’t stop smiling. It never rains here, but of course Wednesday morning I woke up to clouds. Not to be deterred, I packed it in plastic, grabbed my umbrella, and hit the gravel. Protected by preparation, it never rained. I was nearing my turn around when I finally saw them. Coo-coo-ed them from behind and ran up to give them the portrait.
Do I miss the painting? Sure. A little. But the place it had in my heart has been completely filled by this random connection. And isn’t that the way with love, giving it away never leaves us empty, but fills us even more.
It’s like they think they’ll be safe or something, these people who never dare a connection, but what they are, is simply alone. It is a risk, for sure, to expose your heart, your gifts, but the greater risk, I think, is to not. A heart that doesn’t love, is simply an unplayed piano. Nothing fantastique about that.
“I can’t take the chance that you don’t know how much it means to me, you carrying my hopes like precious cargo, and traveling with me to dreams come true…so I will tell you again and again, as if it were the first time, “It is an honor, it is a privilege, it is a joy, to share with you the path.”
It’s no surprise when my color palette sneaks from canvas to canvas. It happens quite often. When painting in blues, I gravitate from sea to sky for several images. Currently I’m in the greens. All colors are available all the time — one could be grabbed as easily as the next. But I think it’s because of what I see. After painting Margaux on the balcony of Marseille, the greens of bush and tree were everywhere. The light that changed this one green from yellow to nearly black, was called to me. Greeting me from the breakfast window, on to the morning path…everywhere a welcoming. You could say, “Well, sure, it’s France, it’s beautiful…” and yes, that’s true. But it’s not the first time I have been carried in this palette, lifted by this light.
My basement bedroom in Alexandria, Minnesota — yellow and green. It was the first time I got to choose my palette. From carpet to bedspread, that one windowed room gleamed bright with possibilities. I’m not sure it was even a year. The house was sold. The neighborhood got small in the rearview window of the small moving van. We left without bed or spread, but the color remained. It still does.
I suppose it’s always been about what you choose to see. Loss or opportunity. Pain or growth. Because within every palette of life’s journey there is the spectrum of color. The same green is lit bright, or shaded black. Knowing you can’t see one without the other.
I can’t tell you what everyone sees. But I know it’s different. This is painfully clear from the daily news. From balcony to gravel, we all have a different view, a different perspective, a varying palette. But maybe the “them” and “us” of it all could be replaced with just different shades of green. And we could see each other, really see each other, as we navigate from color to color, sharing this palette, chasing the light.
