I often use the word she when making a card. Some have asked, “Who is this she?” “All of us,” I reply, “possibly even me.” I say possibly because I’m not always there yet, but it’s where I want to be, who I want to become. So I “she” myself into being.
Change is rarely simple. And it can be frightening, this unknown territory. We want to know “what happens when…”; “what happens if…” But we aren’t always given the answers. Rarely even. What we’re given is the light coming through the crack of the door, and a choice — to let fear stop us, or to keep growing. Sometimes it becomes a space to let things go. Sometimes a pathway to move through. And the strongest of us — this she — is not afraid to do either. I am sometimes her. Each time I give her a voice. Write her. Paint her. The doors become a little less frightening. Even welcoming. And I become a little more she.
It’s what I wish for all of us. To be a little less afraid. A little more open. They’re only doors after all — a passage to possibility — to becoming anything, anyone!
I heard her before I saw her. The greeting came from the back of the store. I scanned through the Wyoming t-shirts and could see nothing but cowboys. “Here I am,” she said. I followed the voice below the racks this time, and I saw her — the tiniest woman, her smile actually bigger than her shoulders. I could see she was still tethered to the oxygen tank at the back of the store, but that was not going to stop her. She seemed genuinely delighted that we were there. She started with the usual questions, what brings you to town, where are you from… After we said France, the gates were opened! She had been to France, even to our area. She and her husband had taken their children. She was so proud that – as it should be! Before she told us she was 90, she made sure of the important things — like she was educated, she loved learning, she was still curious, and she loved to read. I said I loved to read as well, and she was off to the back room again to get her latest book — a hard cover, at least three pounds, about Vikings. She handed it to me, and told me I just had to read it! After taking a picture for a reminder, I asked if I should bring the book back to her office. “Oh no, she said, I may be 90, but I’m healthy — we were all looking at the green tube that connected her to the back room… “Oh, I shrunk so much that my esophagus and stomach are in my lungs, but I’m still strong. I love life.” She told us how she follows the news. Follows politics. Wants to know what is happening in the world. I couldn’t stop smiling at her — this 4’ 10” Viking amid the cowboy t-shirts.
It’s funny what we romanticize. Who we call our heroes. Who we think of as strong and brave. It is so easy to get lost in the cowboys of it all, when the real people worthy of our admiration our walking right beside us, in the racks. I mention it only so you will look around. Or maybe so you will brave the tether and let others see you.
She marveled at how tall I was, but I knew that she was the real Viking. I told her what a pleasure it had been to speak with her. Her story may not make the brochures. Maybe there is more to see in Cheyenne, but certainly there is nothing better! She will not be tethered. I carry her story with me.
There are scientific studies that show actual hormones are released when you share, physically increasing feelings of well-being.
I didn’t have the words for it then. I barely do now. But I didn’t need the proof either. I knew for certain that every event — every book signing, gallery show, television appearance was extraordinarily better with my mother by my side. And it wasn’t just about the event itself. Her involvement started long before. Upon initial creation of the words or painting, she was first to see. From the very beginning she was my safe space for this most vulnerable act of sharing my heart and soul. Each time, preparing me a little bit more. Giving me the courage and confidence to risk it all and show others.
Some have explained artists as a giant nerve, sent out to experience all the feelings, returning as proof that it could be felt, or reminding those who have forgotten, or bringing in those who had to turn away. I can’t be certain, but it feels pretty real to me. I do know one thing for sure, I wouldn’t have dared the nerve without my mother beside me. And even if I had, it certainly wouldn’t have been as fun!
Because it was never in just the allotted hours. No, an event from 2pm – 5pm on a Saturday afternoon started with morning giggles. Extra-hot, skim, vanilla lattes. Outfits laid out. Jewelry arranged. Swapped. More giggles. Make-up. Fashion show. Compliments exchanged. A very light lunch. Nibble really. As not to ruin the ensemble or lose the buzz of caffeine. Then the glorious event. Laughter and hugs and tender, joyful tears. Still flying high, we would make it to a favorite restaurant. The wine and plates shared. Slowly. Mapping out and traveling the day again. Returning home. All exposed nerves filled to capacity, safely tucked in. Muted giggles swallowed in pillows.
Listening to a podcast yesterday, a woman was explaining her time as a Donut Dolly, working for the Red Cross overseas in WW2. With the same courage as any soldier, these women braved the front lines to bring the much needed supplies of coffee, treats, news, letters, smiles, compassion, comfort. Dodging bombs and boosting morale. She spoke of her best friend beside her. She explained that she “drove the truck,” but it was her friend “who brought the joy.”
Tears streamed down my face. People have told me through the years how brave I have been. To follow my dreams. Risking my heart. Exposing my life through the work. And yes, I did dare to “drive the truck.” But just as brave, just as valuable, it was my mother who sat beside me, bringing the joy.
We’re still doing it. Hands at the wheel, I gather in her joy. And the journey continues.
It was only an hour each weekday. After school. I’d get off the bus at around 3:30pm and wait. Two picture windows faced our driveway. Some days, I could be distracted by The Brady Bunch, but the majority of those 60 minutes before my mom came home from work was spent waiting against those windows.
They taught us at Washington Elementary not to touch the glass windows that lined our classroom, because it was the janitor who would have to clean the windows dailly. And we didn’t want to make his job harder, did we? But seeing how it was my job to clean the windows at home each Thursday afternoon with newspaper and Windex, I wasn’t that concerned. I fogged the glass with my breath. Drew smiley faces. Smeared them away. Blew again. Then sad faces. Erased and blew. Challenged myself to tic-tac-toe. Continuously smearing cheek and fingers across the glass. Waiting. And waiting.
The gravel road always gave sufficient warning. The sound of the tires popping at 4:37pm would tell me that my mom was about to arrive. I’d hoist my top above my waist and wipe the window. Race to the garage entry. Fling the door. And I was saved.
She never mentioned it — the streaked glass. But of course she must have known. It wasn’t like my t-shirt wipe gave a proper cleaning. But that’s who she was — the person who allowed me to be me. Never made fun of my silly antics. She saw me. And loved me.
I smiled each Thursday afternoon as I took last week’s Echo and wiped it across the pane. It sparkled clean along with my heart. A fresh start. All waiting’s worries were washed away.
I see it now. So clearly. I thought she was saving me, daily, and she did, but even more importantly, she gave me the ability to save myself. A gift I continue to use. I smile out my morning window, and I am saved.
Enjoy may be too strong a word, but my mother did get a real satisfaction from ironing. Combining this with the skills passed along to us by Mrs. Ballard and Miss Pfefferle, our home economics teachers at Central Junior High, I suppose it’s no surprise that today I iron everything, including my kitchen dish towels.
I think it was Miss Pfefferle that taught us to weave a pot holder. We had little iron grids and multi-colored loom loops that we weaved up and down. I thought they were beautiful! I don’t know how efficient they were — at this point I wasn’t really allowed to do any cooking, even though in Mrs. Ballard’s class we did learn how to make nougat and an apple pie (not the staples in my mom’s, nor my diet). But I was proud of my potholder. And I knew just who I wanted to give it to — my Grandma Elsie. It was a slight risk though – because she was an expert. She had her own loom afterall. Not a handheld one. No. This loom filled nearly the entire bedroom, upstairs next to the sewing room in her house. It seemed to be a combination of a church organ, a giant craft, and a carnival ride. She moved with her feet and her arms. I held onto her chubby waist from behind as it jiggled each “rag” into place. Everyone loved her woven rugs. They were gorgeous. And I wanted to be a part of it. I thought if I giggled along with each jiggle, that I indeed was. So, yes, to bring my humble woven potholder to this proven expert was surely a risk. I knew it didn’t compare. How could it? But it was my best attempt. It was an effort made. It contained her every jiggle, and I hoped, I prayed, I banked on, her feeling the love in that. With my two hands held flat and outward, I presented it to her. This gift. Her held tilted a little to one side. Both of our breaths held. She took it also with her two hands and clutched it to her heart. I beamed. Then suddenly my face was pressed against the potholder that pressed against her heart. I was inside the jiggle. She did feel the love, and gave it right back to me.
Some might laugh that I iron my dish towels. That I hang them straight. But it’s only out of love. Out of respect. For all the women that took the time to teach me the real value of this living — (it makes perfect sense now, this word economics). When I see something beautiful, create something beautiful, it is these women that I see. And I know, on my very best days, when I create something that you enjoy, that you find beautiful, that you too, are seeing them. You are inside the jiggle.
I don’t suppose I had yet thought of myself as a woman — 18 years old — my freshman year in college. It was something I knew I would have to earn. (In typing this, I only just realized the nearness of the words earn and learn. Maybe a part of me knew this all along — the importance of learning.) So I signed up for my first course in Women’s Studies.
As we began navigating through the required reading, it turned out that the history of women was really just “history.” We were there from the beginning. We weren’t just on the trail, we packed the wagon.
One story got in deep. I think about it often — her often. They began, as most of the stories did, on the east coast. They were about to travel west. All the way west. In a covered wagon. She was already lonesome. Leaving behind her mother and father. Just a young married woman, she loaded the wooden wheels with the comforts of home. Her clothing. A little furniture. Keepsakes. Her mother’s dishes. The trail was brutal. Unforgiving. The animals suffered to drag their belongings. The wheels broke away. Mile by mile she let things go. The furniture. The keepsakes — (she cried at the irony of the name.) Dress by dress, dropped along the hidden trail. She couldn’t look as her husband coaxed the horse. The wheels clunked. The dishes remained in the dirt.
We often measure our relationships by what is given. Perhaps we need to look closer at, not the wagon, but the trail. I am grateful for the professor who pointed this out, reminded me, but truth be told, I already had the best examples. I had my grandmother. My mother. I still do. They gave their time. Their hearts. They made each wheel-worn step with grace. Clearing a path.
I pray that’s what I’m doing with these stories of them. Of us. Learning. Earning. Making a path. Making it a little easier for someone else to travel. Hoping we can all, one day, find our way.
Jason Reynolds is an accomplished American author of novels and poetry. I listened to him speak about an old high school teacher. This teacher told the students that they were going to have a class pet. They all scoffed, especially when he told them it was going to be a fish. The eye rolls were audible. This wasn’t a science class. They all thought it was rather ridiculous. He told them that there was only one rule. They listened. They could never touch the fish. “No matter what,” he said, “you are never allowed to touch this fish or you will be suspended.” No one really reacted because, they thought, there would never be a reason to touch it. Days went by. They studied their humanities lessons. One day, at the beginning of the class, this teacher walked over to the tank and took the large fish out and threw it on the floor. The class was in shock! What was he doing? Was he insane? Mouths opened, but nobody moved. They could hear in their heads, “You must never touch this fish or you will be suspended.” The fish gasped for air. Flopping and pleading on the floor. Two of the high school girls couldn’t take it anymore and raced to the front of the room and picked up the fish, putting it back in the tank. Everyone sighed in relief. Surely this had to be a good thing. The teacher smiled at them. “Please go to the principal’s office,” he said. No no no, the class was saying. They saved the fish. “Please go now. You are both suspended.” They could hardly believe their ears. “Please go, keep walking” he said, “but hold your heads up high on the way. You did the right thing.” They left. “It’s not always easy to do the right thing,” he told the class. “But it still has to be done.” The future author said he felt nothing but shame…why had he just sat there, along with almost everyone else…”
In this experiment, it was always the women who saved the fish. Sacrificed themselves for the greater good. I have seen it throughout my life. My grandmother. My mother. Women all around me. Even during the times they were the fish themselves, they saved each other. Whatever challenges you are facing today, hold your heads up high, and keep walking.
They tarred over the playground of Washington Elementary. I have the scars on my knees to prove it.
Back by the swings there were two horizontal poles. I’m guessing they used to hold the planks of wood to form teeter-totters. Maybe they thought the teeter totters were too dangerous, so they removed them. But that didn’t stop us.
I don’t know who thought of it first, but we all did it. If you wrapped one leg over the top of the pole, grabbed it with your arms underneath, forming a circle around the pole, then kicked the other leg from underneath you, you could spin around the pole like a human hula hoop. When it worked, it was glorious. Dizzying. Exhilarating. But when it didn’t…
My sweaty hands slipped from my leg and I landed hard against the pavement — so hard, the very breath that carried me, fled faster than any spinning hoop, fled from my body and flattened me against the tar. No air could get it. I panicked. So panicked I couldn’t even cry out. The weight of it all, against my chest. It seemed too much to bear. It was Shari, or Jan, or maybe even Cindy, one of them said, just wait, it will come back. The air will come back. They gathered around me. The air they breathed found its way to me. We had each other. Even then. And stronger I ran, lifted with the knowledge of having survived. It still carries me. Carries us. Stronger. Together.
At a press conference years ago, Bill Murray was asked if art had ever changed his life. In fact, it saved his life. He was just starting his career in Chicago, and he claimed, “he wasn’t very good.” After a very unsuccessful performance he began walking. Just walking the streets of Chicago. He found himself on the shores of Lake Michigan, and considered the fact that drowning would be pretty simple. But on those same shores was the Art Institute of Chicago. He went inside. In his words, he felt like he was already dead. He stood in front of one of his favorite paintings – The Song of the Lark, by Jules Adolphe Breton, 1884. He looked at the woman, standing in the field, as the sun was coming up, and thought, “Well, there’s a girl that doesn’t have too many prospects, and yet the sun is still coming up and she has another chance.” He gathered himself in front of the painting and thought, “I, too, am a person and get another chance every day the sun comes up.”
My mother did the impossible every day. She warmed me with her own brilliant light, and made me believe it was me who was shining. There will always be a woman to light your way. Some will be lucky enough to call her mother. Others will call her friend, mentor, boss, aunt, and now, even Vice President. If we are able to walk in the light, it is because someone lit it for us long ago. And we must do the same. Even when are prospects seem few, we can still be that light for someone. Today, I ask you to thank those who went before you, and light a path for those coming behind. The sun is rising. We are rising. What a chance! What a day! What a light!!!!
Thank God, for accidents, random acts, chance meetings, fate, worlds colliding, (maybe they are all just the chances we take) (whatever you want to call them)! These are the unknown gifts – the risks we take – the dreams we pursue without knowledge or permission. And that is the gift, I suppose, the uncertainty, because maybe if we knew everything involved, we might not do anything. If I had known how hard it was to actually learn a new language (French) in mid-life (that’s maybe generous), I’m not sure I would have made all the same decisions – and how tragic – I would have missed out on the love of my life!!! Spoiler alert – I didn’t…I took the leap of love and here I am in France, loving, creating and doing my French lesson every morning before yoga. There is more comfort in love than in certainty.
OK… but still…why is it so hard? C’mon!!!! Some days I think I just can’t learn this language — ç’est impossible!
And then those pesky women of inspiration pop up their heads — At age 40, Julia Child became a TV icon on the show The French Chef. Grandma Moses started painting at age 76. Laura Ingalls Wilder started writing at age 64. And then there’s Iris — Iris Apfel — signed to one of the world’s most prominent modeling agencies, IMG, at age 97. 97!!!! Iris! And so I don my imaginary stacks of W.W.I.D. (What would Iris do?) bracelets and sit before my leçon de français, and I try…and I learn…because that’s what strong women do! We invent, reinvent, we dare, we grow — not confined by our gender, our numbers, or ceilings. We take our accidents and chances and we make them into something beautiful! Life is beautiful, at every age! Tout est possible!
