one summer, (almost) every single day, i took The Girl and The Boy to the beach. not the beaches on lake michigan, for the water there is way too cold, but a beach that is inland in our town and is man-made. that was the summer-of-the-best-tan and the summer i loved packing and re-packing our beach bag, a small cooler with drinks and snacks and buckets and plasticware and shovels for building castles in the sand.
they were littler then and it was easy to keep them happy on the beach. when The Boy was reeeally little, he, like his dad, did not the feeling of sand in his toes. he preferred to stay on the blanket or the beach towel. but at this time in his life – the-summer-of-the-beach – he loved it. he played in the sand and the water as much as every child there, including his big sister and me.
looking at this morsel SANDCASTLE WITH ME from the painting SPOONS AND SANDCASTLES makes me want to go back. go back and do it again. repeat that summer. play in the water more. have more icepops from the refreshment stand. stay late until the sun was almost directly on the horizon. and make more sandcastles.
i keep a calendar. my sweet momma kept a calendar. the written kind. she had the old-school kind that you buy the yearly refills for, with two holes in them to line up with the two curved rings of metal on the holder. she wrote on it every day: appointments, important things, birthdays and anniversaries, dates of import, big events, the smallest fragment of time memory she wanted to keep. i guess that’s where i get it from. i love my old-fashioned calendar. i look forward to getting it at the dollar store every year and i keep a mechanical pencil with a good eraser in it. i write in it every day. and at the end of the year, i have always sat down and read through the year, re-living each day, sometimes a good thing, sometimes hard.
if i went through my calendar, even for this year so far, i would find moments i didn’t want to forget. days that were tough, days that were pretty amazing. i would read about My Girl calling out “mom!” and running over as i walked into where she was working and i could recall -way deep in my heart- exactly what it felt like when she introduced me to a friend and said, “this is my mom!” i would read about the manifest destiny of cucumbers and pickles, a funny-made-me-laugh-aloud debate over wine with My Boy. i would read about the gluten-free-dairy-free-egg-free chocolate cake my husband made me and the day we stayed in bed to read a book all day. i would read about lots and lots and lots of walking, hikes near and far. i would read about potlucks with our dear friends and laughter and wine and conversation lasting well into the wee hours of the evening. i would read about late late nights with each of my nieces and laughing till we were snorting. i would read about spending sweet time with my sister and ashes floating on the breeze over the lake. i would read about the quiet peace of the canoe and the sunshine and endless conversation on the pontoon boat. i would read about antiquing and the vintage typewriter i had fallen for that 20 sought out for my birthday. i would read about gatherings in our home and at friends’ houses, sharing time with our community of people. i would read about difficult days of worry or times of sadness. i would read about the hours of working together with d: writing all these posts for our MELANGE and designing all the products. i would see that it’s been much much more than 208 days in a year. it’s been 208 days in my life and every moment has counted. whether or not they are all joyous, all successful, all funny, all productive, they are all good.
recently, while perusing facebook (which i actually don’t do all that often) i came across a post by My Boy. he had made homemade ravioli for dinner. wait! what?? homemade ravioli??? now, this requires making pasta from scratch as well as stuffing it with a delicious tuscan sausage mix. just sayin! this is the same person who, long ago now, used to be able to live on honey buns and swedish fish. he has amazed me time and again with his creative cooking and the photographs he has sent of yummy meals. one day he grilled shrimp out on his deck for dan and me and d. just as thoughtful as the birthday he made me mac and cheese after a long evening i had spent volunteering, but, i have to admit, much tastier.
the first time My Girl made us dinner we had gnocchi and an excellent sausage sauce. i hadn’t had gnocchi in years – since i had it with the hot chics in montana – and her recipe immediately made it onto our ‘what-should-we-have-for-dinner’ list of possibilities.
these are the same two human beings who would ask, ” what’s for dinner?” now i find myself asking them. funny how cooking creativity blossoms in each next generation.
my poppo would sit in the chair and gaze out at the lake behind their house. in the house before that, he would sit out on the lanai and gaze at the pool. in previous houses, he had chairs or his workbench, where he would sit or stand and gaze, clearly thinking, thinking, thinking.
now, when you’ve gotten to 91, there’s plenty to think about, many memories, many stages of life, many ways the world has changed. my poppo was a POW in world war II, escaping and coming back at a time that PTSD had little to no attention given to it. the atrocities he had experienced were his alone to process, with the help of my sweet momma, if he felt that he could burden her with it. my parents lost a child, a little girl named barbara lynn, who would be my oldest sister – even older than my sister sharyn! – while my dad was still missing in action, a little person, a part of him, he never met. i know that as they established themselves as a family, there were challenges that befell them, joys that they cherished, times of much sorrow, small moments and large moments of laughter and goodness. plenty to think about.
i always wondered what my poppo was thinking about, quietly sitting or puttering. sometimes i would ask, but other times i would respect his quiet-ness. now that i am getting older, i find myself spending time quietly thinking. memories, moments, decisions, good things, sad things, questions, things that make me cringe, things that make me laugh aloud. i think about what’s coming up…what is planned, what will remain a mystery. i wonder. i give thanks. i pray. pondering is a good thing. it’s necessary.
each time now when i sit outside or inside curled in a chair and find myself just staring off into space, i can’t help but think about my daddy. and i kind of feel him right there, quietly staring with me. pondering.
“…you’re an angel in my life, and i’m still ridin’ on the back of your bike.”
“…you’re my big brother till the end of all time. angel you are.”
when i was little, my brother wayne used to ride me around on his bike…pretty much anywhere and everywhere. and so my adoration of him started early. he was nine years older than me; he had wisdom and know-how i didn’t…i was years behind him. even when i was small, i cherished all the moments he spent with me. and i didn’t know.
i didn’t know that time would be cut short and that this person who i relied on for advice and wisdom and fixing-stuff-know-how and just general big-brother stuff wouldn’t be around forever.
i remember being in the hospital with him during one of his chemo sessions. i asked him if i had been an annoyance when i was young, always wanting to go with him, always wanting his attention. there was this moment i will always remember – forever. he said, “no! you were my little sister and i was proud of you. i always wanted you with me.”
time stood still when he said that. i knew it was important to memorize that moment. i am still holding on to it.
the crystal clear water was cool around my feet, cold actually. the current pulled at my flipflops, necessary – for the rocks below were slippery and i didn’t have the cool sandals My Girl had on. the hot-hot high altitude sun blazed into my hair; it made me think i should have worn that new packable hat i got last year.
i scanned the horizon, a 360 of mountains and trees and sagebrush and blue-blue sky. and this river. going on and on. as far as i could see, it meandered through the landscape i was reluctant to leave.
and i stood in the water. never-minding the feeling of almost-numbness of my feet. because in this moment, i could feel. the very hot of a brilliant sun, the very cold of snow-capped mountain runoff. this time of cloudless sky and the murmur of the river. this time of being with my daughter. this time of dreaming and imagining and creating scenarios in my mind that would allow me to stay in this very spot. this time of (in this case, metaphoric) cloud-gazing.
every good cloud-gaze creates a story. every good cloud-gaze builds a memory. every good cloud-gaze gives you pause to breathe. it’s the same with your feet in the river, your blanket on the beach, your chair in front of the bonfire, your boots on the trail. make time, i say.
my sweet momma’s birthday is today. she would have been 97. she died shortly before her 94th birthday but remains a force in the world. her kindness and her zealous belief in kindness continue to ripple outward. i heard beaky firsthand when My Girl was talking about the world and its issues and said, “the best thing i can do is to be kind to people.” i’ve seen beaky firsthand when My Boy has stood firm in raising pride awareness.
now, i know this story has been told before, but i risk being called redundant to tell it again. back when my momma was 93 and facing down stage four breast cancer having had a double mastectomy a few months prior, she told us she felt like she had accomplished little in her life. there could be little farther from the truth. but she insisted she had no title (“engineer”, “architect” etc) to put after her name. we knew she had, however, three manuscripts she had written decades prior – stories about the family dachshund named shayne – stories she had tried to have published with no success back in the day. stories told from shayne’s point of view and simply wholesome and delightful, we searched for – and found – the manuscripts. and immediately got to work.
my amazing husband david illustrated the first of the trilogy, named SHAYNE. i laid out the text and the graphics of the book itself, designed merchandise like an “author” shirt, banners and a shayne iphone case for momma, built a website, contacted newspapers and we hastened to put together a release party with a reading and press and a celebration with brownies and asti spumanti at her assisted living facility in florida. when we told her – on MY birthday in march (for what could be a better thank-you-for-my-birthday than this?) what was happening on april 11th, she squealed like a school girl and started practicing signing her name with a sharpie. it was BY FAR one of the pinnacle moments of my life to see my mom – the AUTHOR- hold her book, read aloud to the dozens of people who attended and sign “BEAKY” on her books as her fans lined up to purchase the earliest copies. eighteen days later, my sweet momma was no longer on this earth.
david has since illustrated both the second and third books. the second, SHAYNE AND THE YELLOW DRAGON, was released a couple years ago and today, on her birthday, i am so excited to tell you that the third SHAYNE AND THE NEW BABY will be released shortly. the trilogy will be complete! my sweet momma, beatrice h. arnson “beaky” the AUTHOR would be pretty jazzed to sign each of these, but i know her blessing is on them as she reaches through the invisible line between heaven and earth.
we will keep you posted on the release. i have this sweet vision of so-so-many-many-books being sold (to individuals, to schools, to libraries, to dachshund owners, to families with small children, to families with dogs, to dog lovers, to teachers, to scholastic press or to some entity that sees how important it is to have dreams come true – at ANY age) that we might start a beaky-beaky foundation and help – in some well-thought-out way – in momma’s name. if you have any ideas, let us know. we want to keep beaky’s ripples going.
we drove through the plains, through the flint hills, through rolling prairie, through mountain passes, hills dotted with sagebrush, desert adorned with red rock formations. we drove past working cattle farms, deer and antelope in the wild, horse ranches with fencing that went on forever. we stopped in little towns high in elevation, two-building towns in the middle of mountain roads, towns with fancy boutiques and eateries, towns with little shops with names like ‘heart and sleeve’. we met people who were little-town-leery-of-newcomers, people who embraced us, people just doing their job, people going out of the way doing their job. we saw the wonder of a clear mountain night sky, streams dropping thousands of feet off red rock, arches that had invited themselves into a formation, blue-blues juxtaposed with green-greens and very-burnt-siennas, the grey and white of rocky mountains. we felt the heat of the desert sun, the cool of a mountain river, the pouring-down rain of a passing colorado storm, the peace of high-elevation night air. we sipped coffee in bed in a sweet southwest adobe house, lots of water on every trail, wine on the balcony overlooking the mountains and gin and tonics on the porch overlooking the town. we shared time, laughter, dinners, lunches, even breakfasts, stories, Lumi-dog, tears, adventures and car rides with The Girl. we spent moments with people important to her and people we met along the way who are now our friends, generous people, kind people. we collected stones in the river, sandstone in the desert, brochures and new colloquial expressions, the cherished sound of The Girl laughing, hugs and what it feels like to once again hold my daughter, goofy moments, sunburned noses, recipes, ideas and cardboard starbucks espresso cups we’ll use later to walk around the ‘hood with wine. we loved the moment a way-younger-guy-with-great-dreadlocks passed us holding hands and walking on the sidewalk in a little high valley town and said, “you guys are cute.”
and every one of these things…all of this…inspired me.
so now i have photos and memories, receipts, rocks and prayer flags, matching braided leather bracelets and a shirt from the town where The Girl snowboard-instructs…all pieces of what will now be reminders. reminders of every single thing that inspired me, inspires me, will inspire me.
when you think about bowling, you can literally smell that distinct bowling alley smell. each time we see the boys, we bowl. it is becoming a tradition. i think it is because we are erratic bowlers and they like to poke fun at our lack of bowling expertise. no, truly, they are pretty kind about it. and it is always a blast. after we bowl together, i always say to d, “we should bowl more often.”
sandy and dan (brother and sister) bowl on thursdays. every thursday. they bowl with a team and i know that they look forward to it. it is a staple of their week and balances out everything else going on in work and life. it would be a unimagined joy in my life if i could bowl on thursdays with my brother.
this morsel is a piece of a much much larger painting, called joy. the painting is gorgeous and colorful and one of my favorites of d’s yoga series. when i sorted to this morsel, i was surprised and amused at the bowling ball and wooden lane that i could clearly see there (at least clear to me.) but how perfect. joy within joy.
i am writing this ahead of time…in anticipation of a so-much-looked-forward-to trip to the high mountains to spend time with The Girl and our new granddog lumi. when you read this, we will be almost home. and there are a few things i know for sure.
that i will -for sure- awake at night, as i often do, and i will relive the time we spent in those mountains. i will relish the time i will now have in my memory bank, the visions in my mind’s eye. i will cherish the bits and pieces i will have brought back for our special box. i will hold dear the photographs i will have taken.
when the moon wakes me, i will be endlessly grateful for any and all moments in the little town she calls home. i will run conversations and laughter through the middle-of-the-night quiet. i will catch a hint of the cool midnight colorado air on the breeze through the window. i will feel what it feels like to, once again, hug my beautiful daughter. and i will store it all away. so that in the night – any night – i can recall all of it.
visit our page and like us on facebook!
reverse threading 