It’s ironic, I suppose, that in my daily efforts to absorb the French culture, I can often appear (although you wouldn’t know it to look at me) somewhat German. They have a saying, “nah am Wasser gebaut sein,” which literally means “to be built close to the water.” It describes someone who cries easily, gets teary-eyed quickly, or is very sensitive. Even with all of my grandmother’s “Swede,” I, being born in the land of 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, clearly resemble that remark, both literally and figuratively. I like having the words for it now, even in German.
I was never afraid of the water, neither wave nor tear. My mother saw to that. She drove me to swimming lessons in the dead of winter at the community indoor pool. And she dried my long blonde hair afterwards, somewhat frozen waiting only briefly for her in the parking lot. And just as important, she taught me the strength of being able to show my emotions. Tears of tenderness she called them. Never weakness. So much strength. Even joy. She saw me through the winters of all living.
I’m proud of where I “was built.” No matter where I am, it is where I will be, close to the tender water.
This was not my grandfather’s field. Hugo didn’t wear the assurance of overalls. We weren’t supposed to cut across his field to get to our house, even though it would save a good five to ten minutes. And coming from the fairgrounds, it was a straight shot. Still dizzy from the last spin on the tilt-a-whirl, and a little bit of sick on my t-shirt, I hadn’t the strength nor the will to go around. I stepped into the stalks. With tassels reaching over my pony tail, I relied on my feet and not my eyes. Less sure and more hot with each step, I began to slow down and question each decision made that day. Experience had taught me not to go on the rides, but with only a series of “c’mon”s I boarded. As I stomped through the dirt, it was this that bothered me the most. Even more than throwing up in public, I hadn’t the strength to say no. Which led me here, in the middle of a field that I promised the last time not to cut through, and yet, when my heart asked my feet to go the long way, they refused. And now here we were again. Sick.
I don’t know how long I stood. It was most confusing, I suppose, because there seemed to only be one answer. Not the normal conflict of good and evil argued between shoulders. No. Not good and evil. Only two farmers speaking in my ears. Hugo and my grandfather. Both telling me to go back. Go around. Oh, my feet had a few things to say, but still I turned. When I got to the road near the cemetery in front of the fairgrounds, I saw her. Cindy. Not my best Cindy, but the third one I knew from our school. Had she been one of the c’mons? I wasn’t sure. She waved and ran towards me. Reached out her hand. “You dropped this,” she said. The plastic wagon wheel key chain that I had won at the ring toss, just before I tossed my belly on the tilt-a-whirl. It was worth maybe pennies. But the fact that she walked in the heated summer sun to find me, being not even my best Cindy, this was priceless. She asked if I was ok, never mentioning my shirt. We hugged like the schoolgirls we were. I joyfully walked around.
I didn’t paint them at the same time. Nor did I even think they belonged together, that is, until I randomly placed her portrait next to the bird already on the shelf. Now I can’t imagine them apart. She, in need of being lifted, and the bird, so ready to take flight. I don’t know anymore if everything is random, or nothing is random, (or if there is even a difference), but for some reason, I’ve always believed that we are given the tools needed.
My first book of real significance was The Little China Pig. My mother gave it to me when I was six years old in the hospital. They wouldn’t let her stay overnight with me. This seemed impossible to survive. I couldn’t be that little china pig, alone on the shelf. Waiting. But we read it again, and again. All afternoon. Heart pounding, every time we reached that last page, the little china pig was found by the boy and taken home. Safe. Loved. You will never be left alone on that shelf, she assured me. She would be back in the morning. There when I opened my eyes. I had everything I needed.
Research on living arrangements (such as dorms or housing blocks) and group pairings (like NASA astronaut assignments) shows that people frequently become friends simply because they are placed near one another. My mother and I were friends. We were astronauts (fashion astronauts). Even in different countries, we were shelved, together. Still.
Sometimes it takes just a simple placing to remind me. Even through the seemingly impossible, I open my eyes, and I have everything I need.
Being young, blonde and brand new, I navigated my girlhood through the summers and winters of Minnesota, veering between the colors of January’s lavender to July’s rose red. Now the colors varied, depending on the intensity of the season, but there was a real certainty to my pink underpainting.
I never saw it as a weakness. Nor a less than. This, no doubt, thanks to the strong women around me. Grandma Elsie was round and soft. Cheeks ever pink over a pot. Sticky hands pulled on her apron strings and clung to sensibly shoed ankles. And I was certain that nothing could tip her over, and nothing ever did. My mother, in her opposite of long and lean, even on her hardest days, got herself to work, with courage plumped from the Clinique counter. She offered the same message — I will be pushed, prodded, but never tipped over.
I see friends here, too many, bravely ribboned in the color. Fighting breast cancer. I offer up this painting in the recognition of their strength. Though we are not defined by our underpainting, we choose daily how we wear it. I see these women and I see beauty. The beautiful gift and strength of being, of living.
It was such a contrast. My grandma’s kitchen table had legs that stuck out beyond the range of feet passing. Having only one other kitchen table so far in my short life, it’s funny how quickly I adapted to the thought that all would be the same — an easy pass. Clinging to the assumption, I repeatedly tripped on her table.
It didn’t seem to bother her, nor my grandpa. I had yet to learn of “the grand scheme” of things, as they often said, explaining away how simple table legs didn’t really matter. At first I scowled. Then I marveled. And I wanted to do the same. I wanted to get past the table legs to the joys of the kitchen. To the Kellogg’s cereal variety packs. To the Lazy Susan filled with Sugar Babies, Daddies and Black Cows. Did I still trip? Sometimes. Sometimes not. I suppose I began to let it go. And as I let it go, I imagined the struggle releasing as puffs of cartoon smoke, floating above my head, and finally disappearing into what I could only explain as the grand scheme.
To display one of my newer paintings, I had to put up an old easel. Not my favorite. Its spindly legs need to extend out quite far in order to balance. (Some days I resemble that more than others.) Tripping on it, as I often do, I simply adjust the painting that has been slightly rattled, smile, and release my “cartoon puff” and go back to painting.
I said, “I know.” But I didn’t know. I wonder why I thought that knowing would dull the information given. As if this claiming to almost be in on it, would make it hurt less.
“The house sold,” my mom said. Not “we sold the house,” like we were a part of the decision making. Like we wanted to leave the comfort of Van Dyke Road and move to a small apartment in town. “I know,” I said, after nearly falling from my bike when I saw the real estate sign in the yard. That cold metal sign with the big “sold” sticker placed across, almost like a smile, like it was laughing at us…so I said I know, not because I did, but simply not to give that smiling vacate notice any more power than it already had.
With the last boxes packed, she said, “It’s going to be ok…good…you can decorate your room.” “I know,” I said. (Neither of us did.)
But the defense of this “I know” gradually turned into reality. A certainty of trusting in each other’s heart. It was no longer for the metal sign, but for us. And with each other, there were so many things that we did know, mostly love, some tears shared, but soon laughter, and the joy of really being anywhere together.
I walk by her picture now. Photographs. Paintings. I can hear her say, “I’m still here.” I smile and whisper, “I know.” (And I do.)
What will they write about if it’s only Google? If there are no stairs to climb to get to the public library? Stairs that are just a little too big for five year knees to bend. Stairs that must be climbed with a mother’s hand not simply held, but used as a pulley. Stairs, that if said mother spent too much time checking her lipstick in the rear view mirror and locking the car door, could be traversed on all fours, like one of the lions cemented and perched next to the entry door.
And if they only use AI, how will they know the smell of the card catalog? Stumble through the Dewey Decimal system? Feel the victory of when your thumb lands on the searched-for book on the shelf? For there was nothing “artificial” about claiming the knowledge, owning the responsibility. Name proudly written on the check out card. Book clutched to heart before putting in homemade book bag.
How do we keep it all tangible? These actions of brain and heart and study? What will be the stairs to climb?
I begin a new small canvas. Not for sale or recognition, but simply to learn. Improve my craft. Pass along as a hand reaching down. A pulley to reach the lions.
She wrote to me, in French, that this portrait reminded her of her older sister who was no longer with them. She said she could see the sadness that she carried, (tristesse), but it also gave her hope (l’espoir).
One thing does not disappear the other. We live in between. And maybe that’s where all the beauty lies, if we choose to see it, in the transitions. In the state of becoming. I often have to remind myself, as I’m hurrying to “get through.” As if the furious speed held the answers.
There is no finishing. The woman wrote of her sister as “no longer with them,”…but yet, here we are, talking about her, in two languages. So isn’t she here, hovering between the sadness and hope, with just the slightest turn of head, turn of lip, her message ready to wing on, and on…
It doesn’t sound like a lot, 15 minutes, but the year they extended our bus route beyond the tanks, we had to get up earlier, or go to school with wet hair. (This was often my choice, and for most of the Norton girls at the end of Van Dyke Road.) I didn’t think of it then, but I’m sure it felt as invasive for the Frier’s as it was for us. Maybe they had been first on their route before. I’m sorry to say I didn’t ask, but merely wished that they would hurry up their own gravel driveway so we could get to school.
It’s funny how we claim things. Our bus. Our route. We were all just trying to get to our destination. To be with our friends. To swing our feet under desks while the teacher read aloud. To laugh at lunch without snorting milk out our noses. To learn, sure. To drop permission slips and backpacks with wild abandon and run into our mothers’ arms.
There will always be roads and worlds between us, but the road that runs beneath us, this remains the same.
I wait at the top of the hill. Mailboxes at my back. Gravel beneath my feet. Ready to share the ride.
You wouldn’t even know that she needed it. I made the wooden frame for a brace on the back of her panel. No one will see it. But it will be there to support her. Through the bending power of winter’s humid. And it makes me feel special, knowing it all — the truth of what’s behind her. What’s within. And it makes me love her more, because she allowed it, this support. This loving structure.
The thing is, I suppose we think we’re strong only if we can help someone. But the truth is, it takes just as much strength to allow someone in. To accept the help we may need from time to time. It’s not easy. I know. To let someone behind the scenes.
What’s taught is what’s known. My mother and I reversed roles through the years. Front to back. And with each turning, I thought she was more beautiful, and the amazing gift, it made me feel the same.
We can do this, you know. For each other. Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?
