Words are nothing until they leave the page. I suppose the same is true for love.
Someone was always jumping from something. The overpass. A bridge. The roof of a barn. While I can’t say that I ever would have followed — (we were often asked that question, “if the neighbor girl jumps off a bridge…” and for the most part we didn’t take it literally) — but still I understood the need. The need to fly from something. This need to take all the ordinary of Alexandria, Minnesota, the similar look of classroom and bus. This need to take all that was certain and sure and fling it into the wind and just see…see if in the letting go, we could simply fly.
People laughed when they read it in the news, or sat next to them in the orthopedic clinic, but there was just a tiny part of me that said, yep, I get it… as I turned to the blank page and poem-ed and painted my way up the side of the barn, dropping words and images like added weight, fluttering with excitement as I handed it over to my mother, vulnerable, and weightless, in that moment, in that glorious moment of trusting love, it was then I could fly.
It’s funny how it calms me. Being inside the risk of canvas. Of showing you. Who I am. It’s not my first barn. Not my first book. Nor canvas. But oh, how I keep climbing, because in this life, this love, I know, one way or another, I am going to fly.
She said, “I’ll take that in mauve,” as if I had stock of my mother’s birthday present that hung on the wall, and in different colors. I looked at my mom to see if I actually could sell the poem that I wrote for her birthday, the poem that painted her picture in every word, line and phrase. She clapped her hands in front of her smile, and would have been the first to carry it to the woman’s restaurant had it been ready.
We never looked back.
Maybe it was the approval, the validation in the sale. But it seemed more to be the pure joy of stepping into our lives. Finding the doors and walking through. No longer looking for permission, but offering it up to those behind.
The woman who owned the beautiful new coffee/bagel/restaurant in town, covered her walls in my images, right down to the “lipstick woman” in her bathroom. For years my mom would get the random call, “I’m in the bathroom at Time Square.” The first time was alarming, but it brought years of laughter, and even friendships were formed from that image.
I saw people reminiscing about the place yesterday online. The tagline read, “for people on the go.” And weren’t we all…on the go…becoming. I think we still are. Still standing in front of doors, wondering, do we take the chance, (still feeling those that have closed), but pushed forward by the joy of the time we were mauve. The time we dared, and kept daring. And believed. And believed again. This is the time, once again.
I can reach it through the tree line when I’m mowing the lawn, this portal to my childhood years. Pushing up, pulling back and pushing up again, I saw it — the outline, the invitation, of a small chair. I idled the lawnmower to peek through the leaves. There was a tiny table. Two abandoned plastic cups from the most recent party. One of the attendees, a small stuffed bear, obviously warn out from the festivities, was taking a nap in the shade of the table. Without unhandling the mower, my heart maneuvered through the thistled brush, and I, in my white flowered dress from my sixth birthday, sidled up to the table. Everyone came. All of my dolls and stuffed animals. My mom with her extra-frosting cake sat beside me. We clinked tiny cups of water disguised as tea and we spoke in the language of Alice, and danced behind the looking glass. Fueled by youth and love and the belief in all things possible, I finished cutting the grass.
I bake her cookies, the little neighbor girl. In exchange, I suppose, unknowingly perhaps, she keeps the door open.
Of course I had seen my grandma in a chair before. Witnessed the quick cat naps. But the first time I saw her sitting, really sitting, was in the grief of my grandpa’s passing. It wasn’t in the church. I suppose there, she was still being lifted. It was in the church basement. On a folding chair. Next to an untouched plate and coffee cup. When I approached her, I could see the rising in her eyes, but her legs didn’t offer the Elsie spring. Not today, they said. Something changed in me that day. Roles reversed. All the years of her heart bending down towards mine had taught me well, and I bent down towards her.
I added it to the list of the gifts she had given me.
For even grief was a gift of sorts, wasn’t it? Oh, this loving. It changes shape constantly. I we, can anger, be in fear, as love keeps changing, but it may be love’s greatest gift of all.
Sitting in front of their portraits this morning, I don’t really remember who leaned in…I haven’t the tally of the getting to, I only know that our hearts found a way to level, to come together. This love, sits forever well.
I finished the book Pachinko yesterday. When I went for my walk in the afternoon, I started listening to a podcast about the World Creative Director of Disney. He began the interview by saying that if you have read the book Pachinko, you would understand his history. (Sometimes the universe is quite obvious in letting you know you’re on the right path.) There was no one else around, so I smiled to the birds in the sky, thinking surely they, too, must feel a part of it all.
I don’t know that I really believe in coincidence. I think the more we put ourselves out there, the more vulnerable we are, the more we connect. All of this knowledge, this exposure to others, to books, and art, and music and science and creation — perhaps these are the feathers that lift us. The wings that give us a better view.
It was a joyful walk. It seemed to pass more quickly than usual. I remember smiling, but I don’t recall the ground beneath my feet.
It is said that John Steinbeck had a writing ritual with Blackwing pencils. In order to not waste time while he was in the middle of writing, he would sharpen 24 pencils and place them tip side up in a pencil box. Next to it would be the same box, but empty. He would take the first pencil and write until it became dull, place it in the empty box tip down, and take the next sharpened pencil. His advice, “Repeat this, until you have the Grapes of Wrath.”
I laughed when I heard it. I laugh when I tell it. But the truth is, that’s really what it comes down to, simply doing the process again and again. I suppose it’s true for everything. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. I can’t say that I will write the next epic novel, or hang in the Louvre, but I want to be the best that I can be. To get better each day — this I suppose is my gathering of Grapes. My ritual of art. My daily practice. Some may say that is simple, and I’m fine with that.
She wrote a comment on a post featuring my Grandpa. She said she always admired him. That he was kind. That my Grandma brought them sandwiches. That times were simple – but she could see, feel the love in that. (And that was the greatest compliment, I suppose.)
So I use my pencils. I clean my brushes. I write and paint and post my “sandwiches.”
I recently learned that when birds sleep in a row, the two on the outer edges keep one eye open to protect and allow those on the inside to fall asleep. It doesn’t surprise me, I have rested within that protective watch.
There is a big scientific name for it, which I’ve already forgotten, this act of being able to keep “one eye open” while being in a half sleep — we’ve always just called that “pulling an Elsie.” She had to have been doing the same thing — birding her way through every card and dice game played on her kitchen table. Able to sleep while we pondered over our next move, then waking at the exact moment to handily beat us with chirping joy! And I saw her do it everywhere. In the funeral home where she phone-sat. At the grocery store check-out line (she did indeed check out). Even once in the car. But I was never worried. The speed at which she could belly-jiggle herself awake allowed all of us to rest, to play, to run in a carefree summer, to sleep soundly under her watch.
I suppose you could just rule it all as nature. But I know not everyone was blessed with a Grandma Elsie. So I give thanks. And make my way to the outer edges.
In my younger years, I was a frequent visitor to orthopedic clinics around the state of Minnesota. Without cell phones or iPads, the only thing to do in the waiting rooms was to listen. It was Dr. F. Dixon Conlin that said something that sticks with me still today. Up and down the hallway, he would walk his patients. Those who were ailing seemed to have one thing in common that he corrected again and again — Never look at your feet. I didn’t have the words or knowledge of what all that entailed, but I was certain that no healing, no progress of any kind, could be made while looking down. I was determined not to make the same mistake — I suppose I still am.
I have painted countless birds that counsel from shoulder to head. But this woman, I could see it in her face that she already knew. Her bird, her hope, was always mid flight. So this is what they mean by, “blessed assurance.” It’s written on her face. This quiet confidence. Not weighed down by doubt or arrogance. No need to stomp or trample when you know how to fly.
I’m not always certain of my path, but I return her smile, and keep looking up.
There were rare occasions when I saw adults cry. Gathered snuggly around my grandparent’s kitchen table. Perhaps to confine the news that came in the letter. Or the heartache of a loved one lost. To give it open space was to let it catch up to us in the summers of our youth. But sometimes, with the need for a Sugar Daddy, or a Slowpoke, I would sneak through the screen door and see it, them, dampened eyes and heads down, and my heart would sink. The ground seemed to shake beneath my bumper tennis shoes. I backed out the door.
It was my grandfather who caught up to me. Dazed and darkened under the largest tree near the road. He could see I didn’t want to be dazzled by false comfort. And he was never one to do it. “It’s like the Magpie,” he said. He was never much for small talk. He got right to the point. “What is?” I said. “The color. So black that it’s blue.” “I don’t get it.” He told me to get up. He led me back to the kitchen. Dishes had already begun clanking. There was the scent of coffee in the air. Chairs being pushed aside. Knees unbending. Even a few laughters of relief. Life. He looked down at me. “Blue,” he said. I smiled and nodded.
I have carried it for years. This knowledge, even when things are so black, they are also blue. You have to get up. You have to want to see it. But it’s always there.
I look out the morning window. He’s still right. I smile into the blue.
It turns out my mother is currently living under the assumed name of “animal prints” on TikTok. I know this to be true, because yesterday when I posted this video, she was the first to respond saying “I love that striped top. I need to be wearing it.” That is so my mother.
We had a shared language. From ruffles to stripes. One developed through years of shopping malls and our own closets. Playing dress up. Fashion show. The joy flowed like well draped fabric. And I understood completely. For her to say she was “scouring the catalogs for that blouse” after seeing a recent painting, was the best compliment she could give to me.
So how could I doubt that heaven has TikTok?
I suppose believers will always believe. And I do. And if you needed any more evidence, there’s this — while typing today’s post, I checked google to make sure I was spelling “scouring” correctly — here’s the sample definition that appeared — “I scoured the mall for a blue and white shirt, but couldn’t find it anywhere.” Feel free to say hello to my mother on TikTok.
