There was a rhythm to the gravel road we lived on. A popping of pebbles against the tires. The whirring of rubber in dust. It was the music of homecoming. I listened every day from our house on Van Dyke Road. Just after 4:30 my mother arrived within the soundtrack of return. All that music, all that joy, I simply had to dance.
Of course the neighborhood was often abuzz with complaint. When would they pave this road? All that music, to them was noise.
I thought of them yesterday. They would be the same people here who complain about the cicadas. To me, it sounds like home. It is the opening of windows and doors. Bare legged freedom. A studio that has no limits. A comfort that requires no bracing. My song of home.
I suppose it’s all a choice. Noise or music. Just a feeling. And if it feels like a song, if it feels like home, it probably is… So I choose happiness. Joy. And it moves me from heart to limb.
After all, if we’re not supposed to dance, why all this music?
Could my mother hit a proper note? Not that often. But OH, how she could carry one! I loved to sing with her. To fill up an empty Sunday afternoon with song…lyrics and melodies that weaponed, staved off even, loneliness or doubt… music that set aside the worry of beginning a new week, and just let this moment hover, gather, and embrace in the now, well, that was pure magic, in any key. We sang from the depths of our souls, asking the questions, demanding, willing, daring the answers to hop on notes and dance in the air.
I could tell the mood by the cd that was placed. K.D. Lang’s “Ingénue” would start with the why, and end with the why not. Questions were asked, “Where is your head, Katherine?” “Why hurt yourself?”. Into soul pleading realizations, fists clenched, bent at waist, head raised to the air, “Fate must have a reason. Why else endure the season of hollow soul?” I couldn’t even hear Miss Lang over my mother’s journey of survived and victorious anguish. And then she would become, I would become, Miss Chatelaine. Because having lived through it all, each improper note, didn’t she, we, deserve the becoming! And so we would! No longer bent, but reaching. “I have lived just for this…” Yes! Sweet and glorious yes! “I can’t explain,” we sang, “why I become Miss Chatelaine.”
I have been listening to, well, singing along with, this album while painting all of these women. And I think maybe, as I sing the words, as I dance the paint brush, all of the becoming, from my mother’s voice, to mine, to the painting, all of the notes sung by heart, (and by heart), live inside these portraits, and when you look, really look, you see her, me, yourself, and all of the beauty, hope and desire. And whether you call it by her name, or your own, you become….you become Miss Chatelaine.
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.
You can’t tell me that they’re always trying to get somewhere. Most of the time, it looks like they’re playing in the wind. Dancing even. These birds so elegantly bouncing and bounding above. And why wouldn’t they dance, they already have the song.
She never wore a tutu, nor spandex dresses, but oh how my mother could dance. She would teach me on the carpet of the living room floor. It was slower. But when I had mastered the steps, she’d lead me to the kitchen floor, and I barely felt my stockinged feet touch the linoleum. She’d sing along to the boombox, pull me in and spin me out and I knew I was flying. I asked her if she had dance instructors? No, she said. In school? I asked. No. Did grandma teach you. She laughed (sure it was a bit of a dance maneuvering through all those people in the farm kitchen), but no. Then how did you know you could dance? I asked. I could always hear the song, she said, and pulled me in once again.
And wasn’t that belief? Wasn’t that the true art of living? Just listening for the music. Trusting your feet would follow. Believing, one way or another, you were going to fly!
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 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.
It’s so often the case. Looking back. Seeing that we did actually bear the unbearable.
On my walks I frequently listen to the podcast “How I built this” — delightful stories of success in business, arts and industry. All with their own challenges. (No story is complete without them.) I suppose just enough time has passed — I’ve noticed a large percentage of the stories began during Covid. People suddenly had the time and the urgency to create something. And it’s beautiful to hear the good that can come.
It was during Covid that she decided to learn how to play the ukulele. Not the obvious choice, but as they say, we all have to make our own kind of music. And she has it now, the thing I think we all look to do when going through something — make the proof that we did in fact survive — And didn’t just survive, but thrived! We awakened the “good that can come.” She not only woke it up, but put it to music.
The bird book is my ukulele, my “How I built this.” And the most glorious thing is when our stories merge. When her music seeps on to my page, into the bird song, I know that we are thriving. I know that together, no matter what, we can do anything.
I suppose the real heroes don’t need the “proof.” But still it’s nice to see. It’s nice to hear. All the good that can come.
It was no small feat to gather the animals and dolls each summer morning to go for my walk in Hugo’s field. I had just enough to fill my brother’s hand-me-down red wagon. But I didn’t place them directly inside, the bottom was too rusty. In my brother’s defense, he didn’t care for “babies,” but hauled tools to build his own scooter in the shed. He was not concerned with the orange residue that could easily ruin a baby’s dress or an animal’s fur coat. To protect their delicate nature, I placed my best blankets from Ben Franklin underneath them. And to protect the blankets, underneath I put sheets from last week’s Alexandria Echo Press.
When everything and everyone was situated, out of rust’s way, off we would go into Hugo’s field. I imagined they were afraid, (only imagining because I felt it myself), so I would sing to them, sing to me. And the music always cleared the path. Even in the overgrown wheat, we walked on, lifted by each note, careful only to clear the way, and not damage the growth (Hugo reminded me of this, and rarely in song.)
Yesterday, for the first time, I heard a choir singing my words. A poem I had written was made into a song. As they sang, I felt the tears of tenderness drop gently on my legs’ goosebumps. With the choral field, I was clear, out of rust’s way.
I don’t know how to save the world, I’m not sure anyone does. But maybe along the way, we could make the journey a little lighter. Chase away the daily fear, with blankets and a song. Never to damage, but continue the path. In my youthful optimism, I can hear the choir sing.
They signed up for the choir like everyone else at Central Junior High, but for three years, Gail Kiltie and David Alstead held the added responsibility of accompanying us on the piano. I never asked if they had wanted to. I hope at least our director, Mr. Lynch had, but I’m not sure.
Maybe we all just came to expect it. We often do that in our daily lives, so busy singing we just assume others will take care of it — be the foundation. We all have our roles to play. And I suppose, I hope, that we gravitate towards them, want them, but I also think it’s important every once in a while to stop and ask. To be sure. To give thanks for the support given. To let those around us know that the gifts they give us are indeed the music that we sing. To acknowledge them for laying the notes we climb. Notes we scamper upon with such joy, under the premise “well, it goes without saying…” But does it? Or does it just go unsaid. I don’t want to take that chance. So I say to Gail and David, thank you! I say to you who read, who comment, who join me in the words I plunk on my own sort of keyboard, thank you!
What a pleasure it is to share the music of this life. To take to heart that our pianos will not go unplayed. Our love will not go unsung.
I don’t suppose the spaces left from loved ones passed can ever be completely filled. But maybe it’s wrong to think they ever were. These relationships weren’t beautiful, memorable, longed for even still, because of their solid perfection. Perhaps they were always stardust, flittering, fluttering, changing shape, with room always left for dancing, beneath the flickering light.
It’s the way I choose to think of it, my mother’s space, not as a hole left behind, but a dance floor. And all that magic that sprinkles from her still, lights up the people around me, and they step in, tap me on the shoulder, and ask me to dance. They are my new daily connections. My new last calls. My shared laughter and secrets. Hopes and challenges. Not replacements, but keepers of the dance.
We’re not all good at the same thing. Some are meant to pull you in, and simply sway. Other’s tap their feet and keep the beat alive. Some dizzy you into laughter. Dance you into breathless. And hold out the ladle of punch. I am grateful for them all. All of you, who keep my dance floor filled, my heart in motion, in sway, in the right tempo, under the stardust.
