years ago when i turned 30 we celebrated by going to the zoo. we spent the day, along with my parents and my niece, traipsing around admiring animals, learning factoids, taking pictures, eating ice cream. i’m not really a zoo person. i prefer to think of animals living happily in the wild, supported by a world that is thoughtful, careful and ecologically minded. but i do recognize the need to conserve endangered species, study wildlife and inspire education and preservation of species and their natural environments.
it just so happened that the day we visited this zoo, this day that i turned the big 3-0, they were pouring cement sidewalks. there is a wee letter ‘k’ in that sidewalk. a mark.
we all want to leave a mark. is it an invention? is it a passing-down of a precious heirloom? is it a name on a bench in a personal, special place? is it a work of fine art, a painting, a piece of music? is it a story? is it a world record? is it a mindset? is it a way of being on this good earth?
i’m not sure when they last poured the surface on townline road. but on that day, a certain seagull decided to leave a mark. it walked across the freshly poured street – pad, pad, pad – and, until they pour again, its mark will remain. we smile every time we walk past this set of prints, wondering aloud how long they have been there.
as we continue our time here, we are aware both of the mark we are leaving and the mark people are leaving on us. in many years from now, when the road is paved over and we are no longer, i would hope that most of us led with the mark my sweet momma left, “be kind to each other.”
if you are watching hgtv and they are touting the positives of having a washer-dryer combo all-in-one, don’t believe them. we quickly discovered that the dryer part of the washer-dryer was in name only. unless you have hours to wait and money to toss for the added electricity, the “dryer” is more like a wringer-outer that removes some of the moisture from your laundry.
and so, on this little island, for this summer, we now have a …. wait for it … clothesline. after a trip to the mercantile where we bought line and clothespins, d installed it and voila! we have a “dryer”!!! the breezes off the lake and the sun dry our laundry quickly and dogdog loves to help with the hanging-out and taking-down of clothes on the line. i feel myself channeling my sweet momma as i shake the clothes taking them out of the basket before hanging, lessening possible wrinkles, and again shake the clothes as i take it them off the line, lessening possible hitchhikers. it feels like time-ago. it’s refreshing and pretty heavenly. there’s plenty of time. and the laundry dries.
we have found that we needed to slow down a bit here. we drive slower, for wildlife is everywhere and you must be careful. we walk slower – in the middle of the road – for there are far fewer cars and no frenzy. we have fewer errands, for there are not many places to shop. we see that we will see change slower, for the wheels of progress are big ole tires here, turning slowly as a big tractor down a mottled dirt road. we wave at everyone we go by, we stop and talk, we laugh about our long tenure here – a whopping fourteen days. we know we will slowly become a part of this place. there’s plenty of time.
we were at a new friend’s house high on a bluff in the woods overlooking the lake the other night. we were telling a story and i said something to our host about not doing nutshells very well; she interrupted my apology and said, “there’s no rush. tell the whole story. we have plenty of time.”
you have to plan a little differently with a clothesline. adjustment is necessary. a day which dawns rainy and grey will not be a good clothesline day. and so, you must choose a different day. for there is plenty of time.
my sweet momma had a painting of a modestly nude woman hanging in her master bath. she was proud of this painting and of its location. it traveled with them from long island to various homes in florida, an item that made the keep-it cut time and again. now, this painting was not a brilliant work of art, for it was actually a paint-by-number that she had painted at some point before painting her own abstracts. (more on paint-by-numbers at a later date.)
but momma’s painting was meaningful to her and i suspect it represented a powerful statement – the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown. perfection. i think it resembled her in her youth, and in later years reminded her of earlier years, an earlier body before babies and emotion and injury and surgeries and wrinkles and time changed everything. changed the shape and the look of body but added strength and wisdom that only life lived can add. momma was indeed a woman before her time.
CLASSIC is such a painting, but is exquisite art. the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown.
momma would have loved this painting of david’s and, probably, would have convinced him to hang it for her in her own home. it would remind her of how much she loved being a woman. of how she taught her daughters and granddaughters to embrace being female and yet, not to stand by meekly or idly or retreatingly. to revel in the beauty of having a body that is female, but not to tout or compare or compete. to move with grace as best as you can, for in that movement grace will be found. to show and expect respect for your own body, in all ways. to recognize perfection. in all the times of life.
i suspect that my sweet momma and mike would be friends. just this quote alone would qualify him.
it’s a simple premise….listen before you speak. and then, think before you speak. and it goes hand and hand with momma’s “if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all.”
in today’s outspoken world, this is not so easy. the love of candor seems to supercede the love of respect. one-up-ness rises above humility. but-listen-to-what-happened-to-me out-volumes quietly listening what happened to you. complaining-in-public tantrums over mature restraint. bullying pushes back compassion. kindness is lost in angry, impatient words. helpful advice goes the way of competition and judgment. condemnation is mute consolation. louder seems to be the way of the land, the horizon punctuated by harsh decibels of bitter noise. less quiet. more frenzy. less listening. more clamoring.
“God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason,” mike said. in heaven, my sweet momma was nodding, a smile on her face.
she was born in 1921 and saw everything change around her. she stood in a world that saw the great depression, world war II, telephones and cars, movies, televisions and news shows reporting on more wars than she could wrap her head around. her husband was missing in action and then a POW shot down over bulgaria, all while she was expecting a baby. she gave birth to their first child while my poppo was still a POW and stood in faith that he would return as that little girl died.
momma built a life with my dad, all the while navigating veteran-ptsd that hadn’t yet been labeled. but she figured it out. she held her ground, both supportive and snapping to action or to “words” as she would call arguments between them.
my sweet momma wore stockings and pumps “to business” and had housecoats with snaps, long flowing mumus and finally, at long last, blue jeans and keds for relaxing. momma drove a mean stick shift and, because they were a one-car family for the longest time, walked to the king kullen and dairy barn for groceries and milk. she turned her very green thumb over to my dad after he retired, likely to keep him out of her hair for a bit of time.
she volunteered as the girl scout president and in aarp alongside my dad. she loved wood and glass; she loved to paint with oils. she loved lists and calendars and math and writing and doing the laundry any time she was stressed. she wrote old-fashioned letters with pen and paper. she adored her word processor and then the computer and finally, her beloved iphone. anything to stay in touch. she texted, she called, she facebooked, she mistakenly took pictures of the ceiling and sent them on errant trips out to the ethers. momma loved to coffee sit and have english muffins or crumb cake or danish or chocolate chip cookies or pie. and she made extra homemade french fries every time she knew I was visiting so we could sit, drink iced tea, eat cold french fries and talk.
she didn’t let fear overtake her. she was strong in every way. she credited being from new york, but i credit just her – she just went with the flow and sort of ignored anything that got in the way, including any physical challenge that presented itself. two days after a double mastectomy at 93 she sat on the side of the hospital bed and, in good humor, sassed everyone around.
she loved that everyone called her beaky. and i mean everyone.
her journey was long, her experiences rich. she was an exclamation mark in life. she celebrated people and love and moments and I miss her. so much.
but it is part of my journey to miss her.
each of us bring to our journey our own punctuation. sometimes i think i am an ellipsis, but i realize that applies to all of us. we go on…
if i got to choose what singular punctuation i would want to be, i would want to be an exclamation mark, just like my sweet momma. for this part of my journey. for every part of the journey.
download THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES or CDBaby
plan ahead, you say? well, we thought we did. we wanted a photograph to document our shore-sitting-sipping-on-bold-coffee moment that last morning on hilton head. we carefully watched the waves and placed our mugs in the wet sand. i stepped back to take a couple photos and voila! the tide is a funny thing…something of which we have no control. and so, the coffee cup dance became the moment and our laughter sated our need-for-coffee.
life, i suppose, is like that more often than not. when i moved away from family to kenosha, the conversation went something like this: “3-5 years and we will be moving on.” it is now 30 years later. 30 years! where did that time go? what about the plan? the tide seemed to have its own way and waves of joy and challenge, growth and grief, and simply TIME have washed over me. the tide laughs in glee.
we try to plan. my sweet momma had a great sign. i wish i had it. but it was something like this:
yet, despite our measuring, our strategizing, our calculating, our PLAN, life seems to take unexpected turns. the waves roll in and the tide giggles.
we are all guilty. we speak before thinking. we spew before thinking. we condemn before thinking.
my sweet momma used to tell me if i couldn’t think of anything good to say, not to say anything at all. my dear friend linda taught me that if i couldn’t think of a worthy response to, let’s say, situation/thing x, to say instead, “now THAT’S a situation/thing x!!” both are generous people who have abided by the golden rule and have remembered that they are indeed messengers, anywhere they are.
we are ambassadors, everywhere we go. we take our partner with us, our family with us, our workplace with us, our community with us, our country with us. we represent. we can choose to be messengers of goodness, of grace, of kindness, of fairness, of positive and supportive words spoken about others. or we can choose to be messengers of negativity, cynicism, apathy, denouncing places or another person or peoples.
i recently overheard someone demeaning their workplace. the message was clear and their words of disregard served only to discredit the person speaking. a-messenger-wherever-we-go is a responsibility, sometimes a true test of our maturity. we need be careful. my sweet momma would say, “think before you speak!” i would add – not only because you could be overheard, but because it is the right thing to do.
we have a dishwasher. this is a picture of it. it does not work. but it takes up space in our old kitchen that would otherwise be blank. instead, we wash dishes. by hand. the old fashioned way. it’s a good time to gaze out the window and think or have a little conversation as we wash, dry and put away. in no rush. i distinctly remember watching my sweet momma and poppo do this when i was growing up. they would stand and chat (or be quiet) and work together until one day when my dad brought home a portable dishwasher that attached via a hose to the sink. they would roll the dishwasher out of the laundry room. it would sit, attached to the faucet, in the middle of the kitchen and you had to maneuver around it to get to the cabinets or across the kitchen. ahhh. dishwashers have come so far. and yes, some haven’t. like ours.
for the last week we have had the gift of being in an absolutely beautiful place on the ocean. there are too many superlatives to list about the magic of being there, too many stories to tell. so many memories to take with us, so many learnings.
and – we had the use of a dishwasher… a real live one that actually works; it washes dishes all by itself and then dries them. amazing!
one morning, after waiting for the coffee to brew, david brought me coffee in bed and said he had realized something. during the spell of time he was waiting, after opening up the house to the rising sun, he emptied the dishwasher. he took each item out and carefully put it away in its place. slowly. when he came upstairs he told me that this simple task had actually been quite profound. and, because it’s what we do, we talked about this observation.
as we take on many new tasks with much to orient to and learn, we have agreed to do just this, to move with this simple mantra: to empty the dishwasher slowly. to put each thing gently in its place. to be mindful and intentional and not overwhelmed. each glass will get put away, each plate will stack, each utensil will nest. there is no rush. there is right now.
i’m glad my sweet momma saved these, my first soft leather pre-stride-rite walking shoes. they hang in my studio and are a literal reminder that everything is accomplished by first taking baby steps. leaps are optional. long jumps, ridiculous.
as we embark on some new adventures, i keep reminding myself of this. regardless of age, the idea of learning new things can be daunting and exhilarating, both. we step with commitment and with a willingness to bend and be fluid like reeds in the wind. we hold fast to past lessons and apply them generously where they fit and we recognize when new wisdom will serve us better. we step confidently and tenderly. both.
my beautiful niece chose BABY STEPS as the piece that started her wedding on the beach. the wedding party all walked barefoot through the sand to this music as we witnessed and supported heather and brian starting their new journey, one baby step at a time.
it all starts with baby steps. one tiny footfall at a time. speed matters not. it’s all forward motion.
my niece (well, technically d’s niece) posted this on instagram. she and her husband, a pastor, are missionaries and have done pure and amazing hard work in the world. she encountered this sign on a mirror in cairo, egypt while they are out gathering information to make a decision on their next placement. i can’t think of two people more curious about others and the lives that people live outside our country; they have done impactful work and are seeking the next location where they can make a difference. this sign must have felt like a sign to her – a reinforcement of their choices, their passion, their dedication, their direction.
it would be my guess that the moment you cease being curious is the same moment that you cease learning. curiosity takes guts. so does learning. and adjusting. at any age, we like to think we know. and yet we don’t.
when my sweet momma entered assisted living, she was, quite understandably, apprehensive. a person who adored her own home, but yet loved to converse with others – all others – it was hard for her to adjust to a new place outside of her own place, a new rhythm, new people, new things to do. but she had great courage. and she participated. confused on lingo, she called to tell me that she was going to “taize on chair” but what she really meant was she was going to “tai chi on chair”. and she liked it! i was speechless with respect for her ability to try and learn new things, even at 93. she was curious. she kept asking questions. she kept learning. she kept having new adventures, albeit small adventures. it mattered not to her that these adventures were not staggeringly earth-shattering. what mattered to her was that it changed her. it made her grow and think. it made her try something new. it made her braver. it made her even more curious.
like hannah, like my sweet momma, i hope to stay outside the box. to try new things and walk to the edge. to look to others for inspiration. to ask questions and listen to the answers. to trust being curious.
reverse threading 