Sometimes I have more patience with a batch of cookies than I do myself. That doesn’t seem right.
I was always amazed that my grandma never measured anything. A rule follower from Mrs. Strand’s kindergarten class, I just didn’t understand. I put my head down on the desk when she asked. Raised my hand before speaking, and even drank the milk that made me gag. But then in Grandma Elsie’s kitchen, flour and sugar flew with wild abandon and I found myself caught up in the twirl. Still a bit uncertain, I would ask, “But what if it isn’t right?” “Then I’ll know soon enough,” she said.
I wanted it — whatever that was — confidence, experience, trust, or maybe a combination of all it. Making the cookies yesterday, I found myself once again in the twirl. I made a test cookie to get to my “soon enough.” It was perfect and I finished the batch.
The years have given me the strength to brave the twirl. To let go the worry of what if it’s not right, or good enough, but to simply try. I can feel the trust in my Elsie hands and kitchen heart. I feed my soul. And I taste this life.
All field trips were welcomed. Turning in the signed release form from my mother was always a bit exciting. Seeing the curve of her “I”, still ignites a feeling that something good is just a bus ride away.
That giant yellow box on wheels took us stomping the bog up north. Crawling through Crystal Cave. Orienteering is some forgotten forest. To the zoo. Knute Nelson Home. The baseball stadium. And then one day, without my knowledge or permission, straight to the door of my first love, The Walker Art Museum. I bought two pencils from the gift shop and saved them like pressed corsages from a high school dance.
I suppose you never forget your first love. It changes you. Not only the love you receive, but finding out the love you are able to give. This infinite supply that says you will always have a reason to board that bus. To try new things. To believe in them. To see the beauty all around you. Ever. Still.
That’s what The Walker in Minneapolis did for me. Does for me still. Even a country away. I pulled out my most recent purchase from last year’s visit. I read the back of the shirt. Minneapolis, MN — the World in New Ways. I couldn’t have imagined what that would mean. And I couldn’t love Minneapolis more than I do now.
My mother was always right. Something good is coming.
There was a group of men helping my grandfather. I suppose neighbors. Being the sponge that I was, I listened to them during their break. I could still fit underneath the table, amid the smell of earth from boots and overalls. They drank the coffee and ate the kolaches, and spoke as if they were one of us, even though they said the name wrong. Hvezda. Yes, it began with an H, but we didn’t pronounce it. It was vee-ezda, not he-vezda, I shook my head and told the table leg. Still, they finished the plates and drank the coffee to the grounds. Joyfully. And they would come back, again and again.
I didn’t ask why. The answer, for my grandfather, was always nature. So I walked in it. I hope I still do.
They say that Redwoods are smart enough to share with neighboring trees the water that they collect. Knowing that to hoard it would put them at greater risk in a wildfire.
My grandparents were Redwoods. What am I? What are we?
In my sketchbook, all the pages are almost absent of color. Not flesh, nor butter, it welcomes every image, and rests it gently, softly, without judgement. But for the flaps. The flaps are a vibrant red. Already set in tone, they present a different challenge. We call this an “underpainting.” The red cannot help but affect each color applied. And it can be tempting, this coming in hot. There is a vibrancy, a bit of excitement. And so it is with heart and mind.
Sometimes, seemingly without my knowledge or permission, I find myself in the flaps. But this! And that! And they! Should haves and could haves and supposed tos hovering in all that redness. And that’s ok, for a moment. I try not to add to the heat of the color by beating myself up. But rather create a space, where all are welcome. All.
We are living in a time of red. Perhaps an inhuman time. We’re not the first, nor the last, but It is our job to remain human. To love, to create, to inspire, to preserve the goodness. To be the pages that welcome, with all the gentle might of heart and mind.
I was just scaling the edge of my teens when my grandfather died. Too big to be carried, too small not to want to be. Of course I had seen them before. The processions after the funeral. But I can’t say I gave them any thought. No emotion anyway. Maybe we can’t, until we’ve sat in the line, the slow line that travels at the speed of grief. Each block a memory. Each intersection another line on his overalls, pinstriping the years, like colonies on the flag. My brain could only rewind the chorus from Amazing Grace. Perhaps because it was the last thing I heard, or the thing I wanted the most.
I’d like to think I thought about empathy. About how this changed everything. I’d like to think I made plans for patience in the future — patience when paused at the green light because grief was passing. Patience to know that we are all part of the procession. It is happening to all of us. I’m not sure I did. I think I do more. I hope I do more.
I try to remind myself. One of his portraits is the first thing I see in the morning. And even out of uniform. Even free from the furrows, he is leaning in. And I think I have to do the same.
Certainty rarely arrives on the first page. I started a new book yesterday. I was wafting in and around the wanting to continue, when the words tapped me on the shoulder once again and said, look, I know you’re struggling, but don’t give up on us yet, there’s a reason you’re here.
The tap came in the form of a Proust quote. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I have never studied Marcel Proust, but I am currently seven months deep into a daily practice of creating something in the sketchbook bearing his quote, “À la recherche du temps perdu.” (In search of lost time.) For me it began as way, not to get back old time, but to make sure that time wasn’t lost in worry, or woe, and replace it with creation. Joy. And pretty quickly on, he was referenced in a book, and it kept me on the journey.
Maybe the first time was for me, but receiving it again, this nod, makes me think I was meant to pass it on. I wrote this years ago, “I admire the lost who keep looking, and I am amazed by those who keep looking for the lost.” I think when we find our way, or even when we’re just on a pretty good path, we have an obligation to help others. To be like the words were for me, a simple reminder, to tell you, I know you’re struggling, but don’t give up, there’s a reason you’re here.
It was on the first level of Central Junior High — a small time capsule disguised as a classroom, where for three months, we all agreed that it was and would be relevant, this learning of shorthand and other very soon to be obsolete office skills using copier paper, white out and ink pads. Even my mother in the Superintendent’s office down the hall and up the flight of stairs wasn’t using such antiquated materials or skills.
But I see now, it was never really about what we were learning, but that we were learning. And I do use a sort of shorthand, delightfully and daily. It was just yesterday, having a difficult time, I texted her. She, who requires the least amount of explanation. She, without taking the same class, knows my shorthand, and how to reply. She heard my grievance, acknowledged it, took a breath, then asked me what I was wearing. Even knowing what was happening, I went through my ensemble from mother’s blouse to brown suede boots, feeling the delightful squiggles that translated into, you know me, I’m fine, I do look good, thank you, everything is going to be ok.
What a privilege it is to know people. Really know them. And to be known by them. This is what keeps us relevant. Keeps us living. These skills will save us. And just as needed, to have this relationship with yourself. To be able to have the skills that reach from heart to fingers to brain, in a shorthand of self care.
In the afternoon I painted three birds. Gave them each a beret. They knew what I meant. We are all going to be ok.
When she was reporting on a full time basis, the writer Joan Didion said she used to have this dossier taped to her door. It was a packing list of what to bring — a list she could quickly check off without thinking, and begin her journey. I love it because I find myself doing the same thing. Not for a suitcase, but for my heart, my mind.
Challenges rarely announce themselves, they merely show up at the door, so I need my list ready. I don’t want to think about it. It goes a little something like this:
Playing the tourist, I’ve taken countless photos in back of them — The figures of what the town represents. How joyfully and eagerly becoming them. From Superman to the hatted women of Brittany, I have placed my head and heart behind. It’s just that simple, I suppose, to stand in someone’s shoes, so why do we find it so difficult to do?
Empathy. It takes some time to build. We see people as we label them. Grandma, then Grandma Elsie, she was a woman of this world. Not simply a soft belly for me to land upon. She was young and beautiful. Small in waist and big in dreams, she kissed the boy behind the Alexandria hotel. And carried those dreams from heels to Thom Mcann’s. Painting her, seeing her, now, she is not hidden behind apron.
I hear the conversations. Oh, how she loved to visit. From grocery store line, to card table, I can hear the smiling replies, “Oh, Elsie…” they would say in delight. They saw her, so I could see her, and now I can’t look away. She, they, taught me how to gently tourist in the hearts of others.
And isn’t that empathy — those who go out and see, first, so we all can see, ever.
“I just got off the phone with Phyllis Norton.” That was the subject of the email from my mother a few years ago, an email that I just can’t seem to erase. I have hundreds. Each one more special than the next. No large events. Mostly “I loved today’s post,” or “I miss you,” or “laughter and tears of tenderness,” and always, always, “I love you so much.”
I have to admit in the light of the events currently taking place, I struggle. Does it really matter if I write something positive? If I try to find some words to say that we have to be kind. That we have to be better. To find the words that convey hope. I don’t really know. But then I look through my emails. And every word that my mother typed finds its way into my heart and I know I have to try.
We used to hold many concerts in our car. My mother at the wheel, my fingers on the radio. She got off of work at 4pm. But wintertime in Minnesota meant it was already dark. She needed to go for a fitting. My grandma’s friend was tailoring some pants for her. She had lost so much weight after the divorce. The country roads were lampless. It all felt a little daunting until my fingers tuned in Barry Manilow. (Yes, we were Fanilows.) We even had the album. So timely, he was singing:
“It takes that one voice Just one voice, singing in the darkness All it takes is one voice Shout it out and let it ring Just one voice, it takes that one voice And everyone will sing.”
And it was true. That one voice became three, and every turn seemed a little brighter.
I mention it only because, while it does feel a little lampless right now, we still have a voice. We still have the ability to change things. It was Phyllis Norton who drove my mother to the hospital from Van Dyke Road when she was about to give birth. It all matters. The email remains.
