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?
The Christmas carcass became yesterday’s soup. Aproned and worry-free, I Grandma Elsied my way through the process. Adding everything. Measuring nothing. And it was delicious. Steeped with holiday and attention, it tasted rich and full, but for me, the added pleasure, satisfaction, joy, came with nothing being wasted.
I try to practice it — this making use. A scrap of metal turned into a frame. Discarded wood into panels. Yesterday’s still fresh oil paint into tomorrow’s tableau. And to me it’s all important, but I hope I pay the same attention to living. Using everything I have. Every speck of courage, because we’ll get more tomorrow. Loving with every piece of my heart, knowing it means nothing left inside. And perhaps it’s not as easy as pot to stove, but I was taught to attempt in Elsie’s kitchen. To abandon worry and just create.
She’s smiling over my soup bowls, but more over, my heart. Telling me daily to give it all, and just become.
Van Dyke Road separated the two worlds. It was so magical how far crossing one small stretch of gravel could take me. The back of our house faced a sea of grain — Hugo’s field. And in a way, it was like swimming, running through the stalks at full chubby- legged-speed, arms stretched to each side, creating a golden wave. Across the road though, behind Weiss’s house, was a lake. Not a big one. Nor a clean one, of the 10,000 our state touted. We didn’t swim in it. So what was the allure? It had to be the dock.
Florence and Alvin had a big yard. Bonnie, the daughter, was so much older, that to me, she was just another adult. So there were no arms of youth waving me over to play. I would sneak along the shrub line. Roll down the manicured slope to the lake’s edge. I could hear the dock before I saw it. The wave rocked wood cracking gently. I took off one bumper tennis shoe and placed my lavender-white toes on the sun warmed plank. It was extraordinary. I have no memory of being a shoeless baby, but I imagine at some point some uncle or boisterous neighbor blew their warm breath on my rounded feet, and I knew, standing there, barefoot on Weiss’s dock, this must be exactly how it felt. I giggled like that infant and took off my other shoe.
I braved each crack to the end. My body craved what my feet already had, so I lay down and let it gather in my arms, legs and back. My fingers danced at my side in the tiny puddles of cool water that gathered in the wood’s unevenness. I don’t know if I saw all the beauty of these imperfections, but I’d like to think I did.
Who knows how long I stayed. Summer afternoons felt eternal. I guess in a way, they are. I can still rest in that warmth.
I have written so many times about swimming – in actual lakes. Lake Latoka was only a bike ride away. But just out my door, front and back, oh, how my heart and imagination swam. Daily. And maybe that’s what home is after all…this ability to dream in the comfort of shore.
I suppose we all hope for it — a little of the magic to rub off. The plaque on the outside wall says the author lived here. I stand in sturdy on the sidewalk, ready to catch any discarded words from a hundred years ago. Words left hanging in the cement’s cracking, perhaps ready, in this moment of my standing, to release themselves. I open my pockets and umbrella my shirt.
I go to museums and restaurants. Vowing to paint this. To make this. I will turn the kitchen table into the coffee shop, and sip slowly, slip gently into the romance of it all. And isn’t that what we’re here for, after all. To enjoy the art of being alive, but also to leave a touch of the magic behind for others to climb upon, to rest upon, to become.
I was lucky. I saw it early. I sat at my grandparents’ kitchen table, and held. The wood had already absorbed them. These Hvezdas. Scents of kolaches and pipe tobacco. Imprints of elbows calculating and cards slapped down in victory. Dice shook. Recipes tweaked. Books of crops and yields gone over and over again. Radio vibrations of Paul Harvey and rain forecasts. Over it hands shook. On it hands folded. And underneath, four angular legs that stuck out too far for a racing toddler, but held strong, this sturdy table, this gathering of life.
I take it with me everywhere. I’m sprinkling it now on this kitchen table where I type the morning words. Reach out your hands, your heart, the magic is falling.
I always rationed out my Halloween Candy. Counting each day. Indulging in a piece or two. Doing the math. The goal was to make it last until Thanksgiving. I imagined that each piece was a link in the joy chain. Even on the days when I limped along with my least favorite candy, like a circus peanut or a Jolly Rancher, I was keeping the sweetness alive.
Most of you celebrated your Thanksgiving yesterday. Here in France, of course, it is not a holiday. No days off. So the tradition that I dragged along with me won’t be celebrated until Saturday. As I read the posts of you already walking off your gratitude, I could let it get me down, but I choose to think of it as the luxury of keeping my chain alive. I give thanks again, and check the turkey parts thawing in the refrigerator.
I suppose it’s what I’m doing with everything, trying to keep the chain alive, with a painting of a niece, a grandma, a brother-in-law, a cousin. What if somehow we could all connect? In this most unlikely of scenarios, (and aren’t they all) we could come together and find the joy.
Of course I have my days, my moments, limping through the “circus peanuts” of life. But even the worst days connect me to a chance of something better. So I give thanks. And wait. Today is going to be delicious.
Baking cookies yesterday, I rolled out the dough to make the tester. Just the empty space of one heart. And it occurred to me — maybe we all have to do that from time to time — empty it all — give it all — all of our love, to get to where we want to go, to be who we want to be.
There will always be uncertainty. Waiting. Looking through the glass. Did I add enough butter? Too much? Will the shape hold? The minutes tick by slowly and it’s so stupid, but I think of everything I could do to save the dough if the heart falls apart. I’ve made them before to great success. Last week even. Why do I worry? The needlessly excruciating eight minutes pass and the test cookie is just fine. I smile and finish the bake.
It may surprise you when I say I think I’m getting better at the trying not to worry. Trying to replace it with care. And that’s the trick, I suppose. To care, with all of our hearts, not out of worry, but out of love.
The kitchen still has a sweet scent of sugar. I say to the space in my heart, the shape will hold, give it your all, the shape will ever hold.
Grandma Elsie didn’t have email, she had homemade kolaches — a type of Czech pastry. The kitchen table was always filled with them. When I asked why, it was the same answer for why the coffee pot was always brewing, and why the back door was left unlocked — “What if someone comes over…” she said. Maybe it was the scent of the fresh baked dough that wafted through that kitchen, and so easily out the back door to the neighboring farmers, (who were all a little Bohemian when it came to desserts), or maybe it was because just like that door, that table, they knew that Elsie would indeed be open, heart even more than kitchen.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday on Artificial Intelligence. The podcaster asked, “What makes us human?” They all agreed it was our need and our ability to connect. And if that’s true, and I believe it is, then what does it say about our current humanity when the overwhelming urge across the country is to divide?
I don’t know when the local bakeries opened in town, but it never stopped Grandma Elsie from baking. I suppose it’s the same for me. I keep writing. I keep painting. Because what if someone does come over — I mean what if someone looks at my feed, my page, my books, my paintings, my home, my studio, into my face, into my heart…what will they see?
I barely know how to spell kolache…I had to look it up. So I painted a sign on the door of my studio, hoping the message would and will still waft to those who need it — hoping it finds its way to the ones wandering, those looking for a safe, and possibly even delicious, place to land — offering a worn kitchen chair to rest upon, and a heart wide open.
We’re not that different. We need each other. Perhaps we could all be a little more like Elsie, a little more human.
Maybe it’s because of the cell phone. With a click of a button we can find out all the when and wheres. Photos. Google Maps. I guess my grandparents had a similar device, they called it the kitchen table. Prompted not by clicks, but conversation, they could pull out the dates of every snowstorm, every wedding, death, birth, and pass it around the table faster than any screen. Do we have conversations like this any more?
I’m all for progress. I use my phone daily. My computer to communicate with you. But I hope as you read this, you can slide your chair a little closer to the table. Lean into the conversation. Not just calculate the facts, but feel the words. Trace the palms on tables. The half empty coffee cups. Cookie crumbs. Lean on elbows (because there’s no formality here). Bury your head on shoulders. Catch the laughter. Wipe the tears. Dare the repeats and the “remember when”s.
One of the greatest gifts I receive is when you tell me the story you remember while reading mine. And a new story begins. The conversation continues. Along with the love. Never a need to worry, this table is strong.
Just because we didn’t leave the house doesn’t mean we didn’t go anywhere.
It’s no secret that comfort can pack its bags and take off at any given moment. Knowing this to be true, I decided a long time ago that maybe I could open the suitcase for fear and anxiety — you know, nudge them off a little.
So I invent things, like hotel breakfast.
The night before last, I had terrible dreams. I don’t know that they were spurred on by the news, but I’m certain it didn’t help. So last night, getting ready for bed, I was determined not to watch anything political. The first video that came up in the rotation said “you can make bread at 8pm tonight.” I looked at the clock. 8:05. So I watched. And then mixed up the dough for the baguettes. I slept while the dough began to rise. I got up at 6am and finished the work. The house began to smell fantastic. I have made all kinds of bread, but never straight out of the oven for petit déjeuner. Topped with butter and honey — what a trip!!!! I’m still smiling from our mini vacation.
There are so many things we have to carry. We’re not given the option. But a lot of things we can let go. Even if just for the morning. And we can open our doors and windows to make room for the other things, like love, and fresh bread. We can open our hearts and tell joy, “Come in, you and your heart sit down.”
We were all assigned to read Lord of the Flies, and yet, once a week, we managed to reenact the pages on the gymnasium floor.
Once a week, we (the 10th grade girls) were teamed up with the Senior boys’ gym class, apparently for lessons in humility. The games changed names but most inevitably involved rubber balls and a mat. Each started the same with team selection. Two captains — the two largest boys — chests out as if displaying their earned varsity letters. They quickly manned their teams, easily making their way through the list of boys. Each one jogging over quickly to their respective side, amid slaps and cheers. Then they moved somewhat reluctantly to the girls. I was lucky. I was usually taken in the first round of “I guess I’ll take”s. That’s the way they “chose” us — needing to let us know that it was, at best, a sacrifice. “I guess I’ll take…” and then they just pointed, not bothering to learn our names. The last chosen were all the same. And not even chosen really…the gym teacher usually spared them the long pause and just paired off the two remaining.
Of all the things we got right in the Alexandria Public School system — and the list is long — I’m not sure this was our best work. But I suppose that’s true with every school around the world. Then again, maybe it showed us the importance, the luxury, the beauty, of making our own decisions.
Because there are choices to be made daily. And along with the help of my mother — my best teacher of all — I made one that has changed everything. Never to wait around to be chosen. Even beyond the “I guess I’ll takes”. Because that isn’t good enough. And on this day, this Thanksgiving day, I can’t think of a better time, nor a better choice than to choose to be happy. Sure, there are tables we won’t get invited to. Places we won’t be allowed in. Meals that won’t make the Hallmark list, nor the Rockwell painting, but we get to choose our own teams, our own places. And it’s right here that I choose to be happy. To give thanks. Never as a sacrifice, but as a celebration.
You are the captain of your table. Stand tall. Choose wisely. Give thanks.
