I don’t know how many times I sang the song, “I wish I had a river…” Joni Mitchell was a staple in our house, so when it was “coming on Christmas,” she was on repeat. How many wishes did I make for that river, a river so long that I could skate away on, before I even knew what it would mean?
It wasn’t a river where I learned to skate. In fact it was a pond. Noonan’s Pond. And by “learned” I mean, fell and broke my arm. (Maybe that’s where all lessons are learned, in the falling.) All of my summers were spent attempting to fly. From diving boards to bicycle wheels, I was certain that my feet could leave the ground. It was no different with the change in weather. When the lakes ponds and froze over, I was certain, it was simply another way to take flight.
I wore my full plastered arm, like a badge of courage. Every fifth grader celebrated the attempt. All knowing, valuing, what that breeze felt like underfoot.
The needles are already falling from our tree on this sacred eve. But it’s ok. I learned it long ago on the ice. I learn it daily, simply loving. All the rivers to cross. There will be so many stumbles and falls, and letting ins and letting gos…all breezes under our hearts, under our feet, this love teaches us daily, how to fly.
As Jane Goodall sat for her portrait, she told the artist that everyone made fun of her as a little girl. After finding the Tarzan book, and reading from cover to cover, she knew that he had married the wrong Jane, and that she would go to Africa, study the animals and write books about them. “How are you going to do that?” — really more doubting than asking. “You don’t have the money,” or “You’re just a girl.” “Everyone scoffed at my dream,” she said, “but not my mother.”
And didn’t I make it the same way? Without examples or funding. Seeing the wrinkled looks. The doubters of my chosen unchartered path. But never with my mother. I can’t even tell you if she was reflecting my dream, or I was reflecting her belief, but within her presence, I didn’t just imagine who I could be, I believed in who I was.
…but who was doing that for her?
Maybe this is one of life’s greatest treasures. Finding your champion. The person who eventually teaches you how to become your own. Maybe it’s a parent, or educator, or friend. When you find it, hold on tight, then let go loosely. Because this is the gift that must be shared.
When I painted the first portrait of my mother, she looked at herself and said, “That woman doesn’t look like she needs to be afraid of anything…maybe I don’t either.” We were each other’s champions.
Perhaps if you were to call it an eggplant, you wouldn’t give it such a frame. But l’aubergine, yes, an aubergine could hold its own, and perhaps even more, be the one not supported by, but wearing the frame.
Hearing my name called now, it comes with a French accent, an English one, even German…so isn’t it funny that I always hear my mother’s voice. The familiar long o, so long it sometimes didn’t even have room for the i at the end, it simply wrapped itself around and ended with the d. Framing my heart, not just with love, but with a responsibility. In that drawn out o, I knew I was to keep becoming.
I try every day. Offering up the words and the art. Would she find it worthy of how she framed me? The light in which she wanted me to be seen. My mother. I hope so. I think so. I keep trying. Because didn’t she bat away the ordinary? Try to clear the path? Shrug off and roll her eyes at purple? Yes, yes, yes…Joyfully, I was led to believe that I was aubergine.
I brought this painting with me to France. I sold it, and it’s now somewhere in Germany. It makes me smile to think of its travels. It was just a humble image of my nightstand in Hopkins, Minnesota. My cup. The latte I poured inside, purchased from the Caribou I could see from my window. The walk I could take in sunshine, rain, or snow. My clock radio that said good morning. Said just sit here for a minute and be. That guarded my books. Whispered good night. That I painted at a resting 11:11, the sign of all things open. Ever carried in my heart.
I also brought that clock radio to France. I used the adapter to plug it in. It turns out I handled the culture shock much better. It burned itself up immediately. The words have nearly worn from the cup. But you’d be wrong to say I have none of it. I pause and tell you that I have it all.
I suppose it’s the way with everything. With everyone. I painted the image after my grandma’s passing. A small empty building — “What remains, may only be in the heart.” I don’t have that painting either. But oh, I have the night. My mom was with me. My friends. We were at Toast in downtown Minneapolis. The dancer from “So You Think You Can Dance,” came to meet me. Me! Imagine that. Dancing toward the woman standing in front of that painting, my mom told her that it was her favorite. The woman had tears in her eyes, clutching her heart, and said she had to have it. “Oh, no…” my mother replied. She loved when I sold a painting, but hated to say goodbye. It was one magical evening of a lifetime. So think of all that the heart can carry.
Love never dies. It pauses in that tiny place of your heart, and fills it. And remains forever. Typing this in front of my grandfather’s portrait, I can hear him say that he’s heard this before. Not in a way that he doesn’t want to hear it again, but that he’ll be here, listening, tomorrow, and the day after that, paused in love.
I don’t know who she’s looking at, but I do know that person is loved.
I used to enjoy going to the airport. That may sound crazy. It was so long ago, I can hardly believe it myself. There was a humanity at the gate. (Days when people could actually meet you at the gate.) Even when they weren’t waiting for me, it was nice to see it – the proof in the welcoming. How the faces changed when they caught the first glimpse of the ones they loved (and you had to love someone to do the airport run, it was still the airport after all.) It was the softest excitement. The pure energy of an embrace. A joyful safety that sounded in the unrung bells of “I’m so happy you’re here.”
We can still do that you know. Not at the airport, but in the car. Across the table. On sidewalks and shopping centers. In the mirror. At all of our gates — gates of joy and sorrow, fear and hope. To welcome each other with a joyful ease. We all want that, don’t we?
So I ask myself, is this what I want written across my face? Is this the first thing I want people to see of me? Each moment is a choice. A new gate. Let me greet it with care. The sun is coming up. I smile to the world…and myself…and say, “you’re here.”
In my excitement to do the daily work in my sketchbook, I can’t overlook what I have already completed. There is a luxury to the right hand page. A free flowing of gorgeous oil paints. It’s easy to get lost in it, without worry or care. But it’s only when they are dry, that I am able to add to the left.
In my eagerness to create, I have remain aware of the other page. There are still many options — pencils, pens, fast drying acrylics — all will allow me the joy of art making, without hurting previous work. I look at the completed pages. Birds and humans. Those that have become. Aware of this, I know I must never be careless. I hope I’m doing the same in real life. With real life.
They make doctors take an oath, “first do no harm.” (Perhaps we should all have to.) Oh, I understand, we get excited in all of our progress and movement. And it is so simple to move ahead without regard. But I, we, could take more care. Just being aware of the other page, the other human. We can keep moving forward and still enjoy, still create, without doing damage. Without doing harm. I remind myself daily, signing it on the page, taking the oath in my heart.
Maybe it was more intimidating when dress shops had an actual name. When the boutique said it was not just fashionable, but the fashion of this woman. This LaRou. And we knew it was her choice, her idea of what to wear, because it was right there, in the name of the store, within the possessive of the “s.” With all respect and admiration, I followed my mother beneath the gentle ring of the opening door, as she stepped into LaRou’s.
She lightly touched the fabrics. Sure not to leave a trace of evidence that the money wasn’t there. Yet smiling, behind the knowledge, she was worthy of wearing.
Through the years, I watched her confidence grow. I watched her walk through the bells a little faster. A little taller. The names on the stores changed. The locations. From Alexandria, to Minneapolis, to Chicago and New York. All the “s”s that were dropped, she collected and wore them proudly. For each outfit was not theirs any longer. She added the grace. The style. And didn’t they all become Ivy’s.
I see it so clearly now. Watching people become. How extraordinary they are, you are, when you step into your grace. Claim it as your own. Walk proudly under the ringing of your own bell — your opening to this life. Claiming your apostrophe. Beautiful!
There’s probably a path worn from my daily trek to the hills of the Montaiguet. But I can tell you, I have never walked the same way twice. (Sure, if you’re going to count by tread marks, but my travels are led (or whisked away) by imagination, and are more like the darting of the birds to the stories just behind the trees.
I suppose I started on Van Dyke Road, dragging a wagon full of fellow wanderers — more than willing participants in the sunlit adventure of the afternoon. No rules or fences, only wonder. “I wonder if my hand could fit in there?… or if my doll could reach that highest limb? If the elephant I won tossing rings at the Douglas County fair missed its friends, and were they waiting in the North End? Could we all survive on one can of Chicken Noodle soup? Could the wagon actually take flight if pushed fast enough down the hill? How do you get grass stains out of a baby blanket? Is there a secret land in Hugo’s field? Could my mother always find me?”
My feet may not be as quick, by my mind is still as wistful as the wondering wren. The sun comes up, and I flutter.
There was a certain freedom to it – being in the girls’ gym. You might think freedom a strange word for this windowless box in the basement of Central Junior High. But certainly there were no pressures to impress.
We cycled through the normal courses. Basketball. Volleyball. A simple change with a new set of balls. But when it came time for the gymnastics week, the whole pink gymnasium was transformed. Beams and mats. Horses and Bars. Certainly we should have been padded on knees and elbows. At the very least helmeted, gauging our limited expertise. Yet, we flung ourselves without knowledge or permission in unwashed gym shorts and t-shirts for the allotted 50 minutes. No guidance. No spotters. No inhibitions.
The floor exercise came with a record player. We were decades ahead of the popular saying, “Dance like no one is watching,” — believe me, no one was. Dropping the needle with a scratch, then racing to the mat, we made “routines” (completely ignoring the definition of routine, because certainly these movements couldn’t be repeated, as we made them up to the music.)
We were never graded. If you could make it up the cement stairs back to the locker room, you passed.
I can feel it sometimes. Hear the turning of the record as the day begins. And I just abandon rule and worry, and move. I get to decide. We get to decide, how to make our freedom. How to fill it. Drop the needle, and simply dance.
I don’t remember the first thing I put into the drawer. For the longest time, I thought it was just a facade. It was stuck, so I never forced it after trying once. I sat in front of it. One day I think it moved with my knee, so I tried again. Et voila! I laugh when I open it now. It’s completely full — I suppose the saying is true, it goes little by little, then all at once.
I suppose it’s true for everything. Life and love. I don’t remember getting older. I write every day about my “little by little”s, but I don’t recall a time when my heart wasn’t full.
It’s so delightful. When people get into your “all at once.” You can’t remember not loving them. I know you’ve felt it — people with whom you are ever in mid-conversation. No matter the time or distance. No matter the rise and fall of life’s breath. They are ever with you. Ever filling you.
My knee brushes against the drawer that I didn’t know I had, and I smile. Love will always find a way in, and stay.
