There was no turkey, nor stuffing. Certainly nothing pumpkin, but I was thankful. My friends brought napkins from Minnesota on their most recent visit. They didn’t know, but it didn’t surprise me at all that they would go perfectly with my French plates. These little pieces of paper, barely more than air, had, have, the gravity to tumble into my heart, and fill it.
Before we were allowed to stir, or guard a heated pan, we were expected to set the table. I suppose it was years of practice, of placing knives and forks (silverware that wasn’t silver) and glasses (that weren’t really glass at all, but colored metal), before I realized that bringing some things to the table, was actually, what “I brought to the table.” Grandma Elsie knew that being a part of something was to participate. Gifts, however small, were gifts.
When my stepdaughter came to dinner, she, being in need of nothing but the magic of time spent together, was welcomed with a Minnesota napkin on our French table. (A Minnesota nice.) A gift of love passed from home to home to home.
In a world of so much “haves”, I often wonder what I have to bring to the table. Then I paint a portrait. Offer the love that I have been given since my arms had to reach over my head to set a plate. A waft of Elsie smiling from a far away kitchen kisses my cheek. And I am home.
You could tell Grandma Elsie was a social being, by the amount of wrinkles on her apron — all those gathered in left a mark.
I used to think it meant only a bad thing – this leaving of a mark. I heard it on the playground daily. Falling off a monkey bar. Being pushed onto the cement. Scratched, pinched, horse-bit and sometimes with teeth. (We ran wild at Washington Elementary.) It’s funny we didn’t even mention the tears that ran down pinkened cheeks.
I was shy as shy could be back then. I didn’t speak without a broad opening. I suppose that’s what grandma laps are for. And in the softened safety of her welcoming apron, I let it all out. What I thought. What I worried. What I dreamed of and hoped for. And by the time I reached what I long imagined I had climbed and twisted and twirled in her flowery folds. Entangled, she looked at her apron, and said, “That’s going to leave a mark.”
I could print it here for you, a poem that I’ve recently discovered, but that wouldn’t be the same. I know this, because I grew up walking to the library, not holding it in my hand. And what a glorious lesson this was — having my whole body in search of the information. Feet trudging to get hands winging through card catalogs. Eyes searching. Arms carrying loads. Books spread on tables. Thumbs thumbing. Pencils scratching notes. Reading again. Scratching again. Re-reading. Hoping. Willing the information from toe to head.
And when the test came, (they always come), what a thrill it was to walk the answer through each step and write it down on the challenge of blank paper. Every inch of your being smiling with delight, knowing “I helped.”
As you wander today through “the ruthless furnace of this world,” I encourage you to be “stubborn” enough to “delight” in the search of this marvelous poem. Read it. Trace it with your fingertips and feel the wonder.
I know it’s just a googling of the quoted lines, but still, when it pops on your screen, when your hands type and your eyes wander, maybe you’ll feel the joy, the delight, of a library trudged, knowledge gained, and a heart expanded.
The bag of Twizzlers they brought from the US could easily fit into a small bassinet, and I coddle it to my breast with a love worthy of the same. It’s not just because I love the taste of the candy. Or that I can’t get Twizzlers in France. Not just because I know they love it too. Or that I know the drawer where they keep a rotating bag in their home. I suppose it’s all of these things that make up the language of friendship.
And now, just as I know how far it is from recliner to licorice in their home, they will be able to picture me enjoying it in every room here in France. The great exchange.
People always say, “no strings attached,” — but I don’t think it applies to red licorice vines.
When I go to the studio today, on a bit of a sugar high, everything will seem fresh and new, because yesterday, love walked through.
Standing in front of the bird in the hand, he asked me what was the English word for perspective. Perspective, I said. He smiled, not having to learn another word. I smiled because not only was he speaking in my mother tongue, we were talking about art — my love language.
We are meant to connect. I believe it.
So many things can divide us. Learning a new language, I suppose, is like opening yourself up to a whole new perspective. You can focus on all the differences, but the weight of that can be unbearable. Nothing is lighter than joy. And landing on a word, a phrase, focusing on the common, the similar, the connection — this, weighing almost nothing at all, can lift us, higher than we ever imagined alone.
Sometimes the “bird in the hand” (the gift) is simply the fact that we’re reaching out at all. Just a thought from this bird brain.
While most of the kids on Van Dyke Road were told each morning to “get dressed,” it was my mother who told me simply, quietly, to “dress.” I learned the difference quite early on. To get dressed was merely to cover. Anyone can do that, she said. We were dressing. Completing an ensemble. A package of self-esteem and self fulfilling prophecy. I watched from bathroom to closet to full length mirror. Proof that what she was saying was true, as it carried her with style and grace daily to Independent School district #206.
I dressed to go into Aix yesterday. We just had a few errands, but I made sure I was belted, smoothed and scarved. Approaching the other side at the first crossing into the city, she smiled at me and said that I was “Très Élégant.” I clutched my imaginary pearls and thanked her, feet no longer touching the ground. I’m not sure how long I floated, (I’ll tell you if I stop). Of course a compliment feels wonderful, and it will always lift you. (Never underestimate the power of a compliment.) But it was more than that. The smiling woman, the complimenting woman, she was wearing a ruffled blouse, a crisp, white ruffling Ivy blouse. Proof, once again.
I imagine she can see me from the window as I begin a new painting. It’s a secret we’re keeping until the new canvas comes to life. It’s not her first time, so she knows that to talk about it would suck the magic right from the paints. She simply smiles and waits. Even the bird by her side remains perched.
We often think that we have to do something. Certainly some sort of action must be taken. When something bad happens, retaliation. With tears, the wiping away. With joy, a wild celebration! It was my mother that taught me differently. That often, the best reaction was just the sitting in, with, and along. In the darkest times, we’d lie quietly until the sun returned as promised. Together. When feelings or knees were hurt, a simple sitting on the front steps as quietly as grass growing would lead eventually to the tapping of shoes against cement, to the exhale, to the jumping off, into the green garden. In the happiest of times, after a book signing, a grand event, after the clapping and cheers, we’d marvel, shaking our heads and smiling in the glorious almost misbelief. Beginning sentences of joy and gratitude, never finished, but continued with hearts heaving.
I suppose it’s always the little things. The support of simply. Being. There. I look over my shoulder and see her watching quietly. I look above, and know the same.
I googled it. It turns out you don’t need a certain shape to your lips in order to play the flute. Maybe it was because we didn’t have Google in the fifth grade, or maybe they just needed to fill out the woodwind section, but I was told I didn’t have the proper lip for the flute that I so desired, and that I would be better suited for the clarinet. Upon Mr. Iverson’s authority in the Washington School gymnasium, I signed up to play the clarinet in the band.
Some decisions get made for you.
I learned to love the clarinet. I still have mine. It stands proudly in our library. (No flute could do that on its own.) I haven’t thought about that day in years. Decades even. But as I was painting her small portrait, focusing on the lips, I thought, “She can play the flute if she wants.”
I didn’t go on to play the clarinet after high school. I never made it past second chair. I’m not sure my life would have turned out much differently had I played the flute.
Playing the clarinet in the band at the basketball games, I sat next to Janie who played the flute. It was her father that would take out my appendix later that year. And after losing weight from said surgery, my mom would take me to Fleet Farm, and buy for me my first pair of painter’s pants. Was it all meant to be? Probably.
There are so many turns and twists and decisions that get us to WHERE we are, but with any luck, I suppose, we remain WHO we are. The music plays in the south of France, and I begin a new portrait. I am what I am.
Charles returned on his first break from university. He showed us pictures of his campus and classrooms. The problems written across the blackboards were nothing short of Good Will Hunting. My eyes rolled at my brain, which was challenged enough from translating English to French. These scribbles and tweeks and solve-fors seemed beyond language. Had this Matt Damon always sat so loosely on our sofa? What a smarty pants, I thought. And then I thought, people who are actually that smart wouldn’t say smarty pants, nor probably know the outline of this film playing in my head. And then I thought, stop thinking and pay attention, not unlike what I said to myself while taking my own classes long ago.
We all have our own currency. It’s foolish to measure against anyone else. It’s foolish not to use everything you have.
I stared at the photos he clicked through on the television. These giant tableaus were no longer “problems”, but works of art. Because this was his art. I could see how excited he was. To show them — these Pollacked masterpieces hanging in his museum of learning. Seeing his passion to solve, I understood. I relaxed into my chair, and finished the tour.
He was never going to stay this size. He was never meant to. But there was a moment, a joyful moment, in this living room, we all sat loosely.
I have spent my life daring the blue dress, long before I was ready to dance. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been ready for anything. (Can anyone be?) Mostly I think I’ve just started.
Uncertain, I have eased my head through. Let it drop over nervous shoulders. I have turned on the record player. Let the music travel from ears to fingers, as I slipped into the black hose. And I have braced my nervous heart with arms over ribs that simply couldn’t be trusted. And without my knowledge or permission, the blue begins to blur, and there is no more getting ready — I AM a dancer.
If we waited for the perfect time, we’d never do anything. There is no sure that gets us over the edge. No certainty. And if there were, would there be any reason to continue? This is what I tell myself in the jitters of it all. The nervousness is simply a dance.
And so I begin. I wiggle my shoulders. My toes. And I am move a little easier through the blue.
