Images of My Mother

I can still feel the bottom of my feet on top of yours that were covered

with white socks while you danced me around in the basement on the black and white

linoleum floor

while my big brother waited his turn

and little sister slept in her crib upstairs

We twisted to Chubby Checkers, you in your madras shorts

and crisp white blouse

your wavy, auburn hair swishing against your back 

eyes closed so you could feel the music

God, how you loved to dance

There was always music

on a radio or the blonde wood stereo 

with records stacked beside it

 mix of opera and polkas,

blues

rock and roll that you hid from our father

 You knew all the words to Creedence songs

 You sang off-key but it didn't matter as much as how it felt to belt those songs out from

deep inside

On summer days you baked in the sun covered in oil out in the back yard, the chaise lounge

smelled like coconut, the pages of your books, stained 

your shiny skin freckled and your nose with that slight crease that never

changed color was as pink as your cheeks by the end of the day 

We'd play in the yard or wade in the rubber pool beside you, run inside to fill

your glass with iced tea, ice cubes chuckling all the way 

to your chair

I loved looking at your year book from high school

that wavy haired girl with the mock white turtle neck sweater smiling 

from the page covered with signatures and good wishes of classmates and teachers

Your perfectly plucked brows and red lipstick lining your lips that curled up at the corners

Images of you playing basketball

Pictures of you in your prom dress, strapless and elegant

Dancing, of course

I liked thinking of you as a kid, maybe someone I might have hung around with

though I never got your gift for dancing

One of my favorite pictures of you was taken when you were about twelve

Skinny, leggy kid with crooked braids in your hair and a goofy expression on your face,

half smile half grimace

wearing saddle shoes with no socks, that look too big, probably hand me downs from 

one of your many sisters

It was taken at the farm where you grew up and couldn't wait to escape,

but a place that you had deep and beautiful memories of as you grew older

and more sentimental about those barns your father built

and the smell of fresh baked bread

Hide and seek in the orchards

under violet skies

The last time I saw you I said,

"I'll be back in a few days"

and you raised the one eyebrow the way you could, you said, "Stay"

Music was on but I can't remember what

 Your

 soft embrace remains

as does the dizzy feel of spinning around with you on a basement floor

keeping my feet steady on top of yours

Still my favorite way to dance.

not a milestone, but a moment.

It is the night before another Valentine’s Day (a holiday permanently marked in our family’s memory, as it coincides with the death of Norma Lenore, my grandmother).

Six years ago, we wore red to her funeral, laughed and cried over the special experiences we shared with her, and I celebrated my 25^th year on this planet.

Tomorrow we will pay our respects, reach out to one another, say our “ I love you’s”, and reflect in our individual ways—remembering those who we have loved and lost, and those who we continue to hold close.

There’s snow in the forecast for the next few days, and though it is my night off from work, I won’t be braving the slick roads, freezing rain and snow drifts, to see a movie or have a dinner out. Instead, my Valentine sits at the kitchen table deciphering the philosophy of Marx, sipping on our shared bottle of wine (and eyeing the cupcakes I just frosted), as I listen to the whir of the extra space heater, the intermittent wind, and think about how much has happened since Norma’s passing.

There are little things that remind me of her daily. Like, just the other evening, I was flipping through a book of poetry and out fell a couple of photographs and the prayer card I kept from the services. Place markers for this poem:

Sacred Heart

Lee Ellen Briccetti

Even as a girl I knew the heart was not a valentine;

it was wet, like a leopard frog on a lily pad;

like a lily pad it had long tube roots

anchoring it in place.

And smaller roots too, like the lupine and marigold

and bleeding hearts’ roots I traced with my finger

while transplanting in the garden.

I believed Jesus had a thousand bloody hearts

planted in our flowerbeds beneath the pink flowers;

they could see us through the ground.

I had a book about a girl who lived in the earth

near the tree roots, who cut off her finger

and used it as a key. I wondered if I could love like that.

I studied the painting of His chest peeled back

to show light around the Sacred Heart.         

And in the bedroom at my grandmother’s where I slept

Against the tree shadows, I was the spirit

inside the room’s heart, and my life was inside me

like something that could leave quietly through the window.

I didn’t fall for a man who makes a ton of money, like Norma would jokingly advise my sisters and I to do when she was alive. But I did fall for a good man, who doesn’t seem fazed by how sentimental I get, emotional at times, and occasionally obsessed with morbid things like subtle violence and death. If she was around still, she would probably comment on how handsome he is (and of course, I would have to agree). And also, she would ask if he makes me laugh (because she loved to laugh—big belly laughs at the table, occasionally dripping some sort of sauce of her nice clothes, which would just make us laugh harder).

On Monday, I turn 31. And such a weird age it is to process, because it falls into that “just another day” category, as Valentine’s Day once did for me. There will be no milestone passed. No bar hopping or major celebratory event will take place. No piñatas or clowns or pin the tail on the donkey, either (Sorry Mom. Though, you could probably still swing it with Molly).  

I suspect that maybe this is a sign I’ve embraced adulthood, that my idea of a perfect birthday is renting a room in a quaint B&B in some small Northern town, and doing exactly the same thing that me and my Valentine are doing right this minute: simply, enjoying each other’s company, our casual goofiness, and the love we have for one another.

So, to end this thought, I would like to say:  enjoy the holiday—not through the giving and receiving of material gifts (the diabetic, fabricated, wasteful stuff). But through the giving and receiving of mutual respect. Compassion. And of course, that beautiful, magical, red-stained love.

I Look for Quiet Places

Rilke said that as we get older our partner's role is to help guard our solitude

a big change from youth when we think we need to fill our days with bustling about

getting things done, making plans, little thought to horizons, rather, pushing past them

finding new ones

and conversations

the constant sound of others clattering about in our ill defined spaces

with push pins on the walls

Ideas or images held onto pock marked sheet rock with carelessly cut edges

Rooms with poor lighting and beer stained carpets and 

collections of found objects meant to become art

some day

Shared or lent, communal places without the rules

Noisy running refrigerators with nothing but condiments 

and no one ever filled the ice cube tray

Bookshelves filled with textbooks and journals we purchased

with interesting paper inside them, sometimes handmade, or cheap ones decorated on the outside so as to invite us to those blank pages waiting for 

a dose of insight

about moments that stacked together to make a day

or late night rants describing the pains

and ecstasy of casual encounters

that started off with a spark of something that felt like

possibility

It's quiet space I value now

and I find myself looking for windows of

opportunity to open those journals that have been dragged around

for decades, now with empty yellow paper

that I can fill with this life 

grateful for better walls which hold art I made or collected, photographs, simple works

that have become old friends who speak softly

and who find their way to the pages.

Early Evening Rant

Sometimes it's easy to convince myself that the doctors were wrong

that these cantankerous muscles that scream at me in the middle 

of the night are just missing the bananas that I didn't have time

to eat each morning

My toes curl and I can feel my calf separating from the bone

All I know to do is stand up

Keep moving, walking around on the smooth wood floor, craning my neck to see out, pushing my face against the cold glass of the bathroom window

looking for stars falling against that blue-ink sky

Thinking there is one more wish to make

and the wish always has to do 

with more time

I want time more than I want anything

Time to waste on foolish things

Wandering new places

Sunday mornings of not much

To read

To write

To paint

To hold those that I love close

God, how I hate the idea of losing track

That look that my girls give me when I have said the same thing over and over

Just to make a point

Sometimes distracting them from the fact that I can't stand up without tilting over

I lean into them just as I lean towards the window 

looking for the bright spot in the sky,

certain that a star will appear.

Use Your "Big Girl Voice"

My Sar has always had a gentle voice. Even when she was a little girl. People often had to lean in to hear what she was saying. I remember sitting outside of a cafe in Keene, New Hampshire when she was not quite three years old having lunch and every time a stranger walked past, she said hello to them. It was like she was conducting her own little social experiment. (No surprise that she was a cultural anthropology major as an undergrad). Some people responded, some did not. It was likely that the ones who did not say hello back could not hear her. An interesting thing that happened to Sarah's face when she greeted people was that her eyebrows came together and her mouth stayed in the "o" at the end of hello and she never took her eyes off of the person's face. Her head tilted to the right and her chin followed that "o".

It was the place that that voice came from inside her that I knew even then was very sincere. And the response from others was important though she was not discouraged by being ignored. She was patient with people. When she was acknowledged she offered a grin and was satisfied with that.

When Sarah was in high school one of her teachers, a math teacher, had become exasperated that she would not raise her hand in class, despite knowing the answers most times. He created a behavior plan in which she was rewarded for offering answers. He said, "I really need to hear your big girl voice, Sarah!"

On Monday night my grown up daughter gave a public reading of her writing in a jam-packed venue in Portland, Maine, wall to wall, lights low, a small and humble podium. She read one of her poems and then a short essay. She and two other writers were invited to share their work. Sar was first.

My daughter has spent her life speaking quietly, gently, careful not to disturb others, covering her ears when the noise around her was just too much, and there she was leaning into her own words as if sailing, with the attention of others as her wind. Her chin followed her words and I watched the crowd leaning back. She remained steady with their focus and the power of those words resonated from wall to wall. At the end of the poem there was enthusiastic applause. At the end of her essay, there was silence. It seemed that the audience wanted more but then I realized that they too were stunned by the importance of what they had heard. It was a brave and powerful piece, not gritty but thick with poignant observations about a group of people in a particular place, a harsh environment. Then, came a deeper, longer applause, thick pawed, perhaps some cheers.

Sarah has found her voice. While it is not necessarily louder, she has reached deep inside to find words to describe her experiences, some of them painful. Sometimes it makes me sad that I could not have protected her from those people who didn't respond kindly, but mostly, it fills me pride that she continues to reach out, is not bitter or angry, and that she is not deterred by what is hard. She pushes forward, making art of the life she has lived. It was a beautiful thing to watch so many people listening to Sarah Caouette speaking with confidence in her beautiful, powerful "big girl voice".

make your ego porous.

"Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything."

― Rainer Maria Rilke

Last January, I was given a Christmas cactus as a graduation present. It was in full bloom at the time and symbolic as I took my first steps toward a reinvented and uncertain future as a writer, as an artist, and (for the most part) as a mature woman with a mindset focused on goals I had once seen as unattainable. My priority was to get my life in order—to stop falling for unavailable men who took more than they gave, to make some firm commitments about things, and to ditch the excuses.

Graduate school and earning an MFA (which you really don’t need to be a writer, this is true) not only broadened the picture for me and opened my eyes to a community of extremely passionate people, but it also taught me self-discipline and to have confidence in myself and my abilities. And though I made the decision to further my education rather impulsively (after the passing of my grandmother, Norma Lenore), this was truly the confluence of my life when I really began to define who I was as an independent and driven adult.

So, back to the plant. The whole world is your oyster- scenario was unfurling for me, and all these fuchsia flowers were abundant and open like their entire existence had led up to this one moment of flamboyant display. Only lasting a few short weeks, then the buds began to close again, like sleepy little eyes. And for a period of time, I didn’t think the plant would make it. It looked pretty pathetic and I tried my best to nurture it. Moving it to different windows for sunlight, giving it plant food, watering it regularly. But for a good year, it remained emaciated, sterile and without any luster, despite my best efforts.  

There was a lot of change happening around me, too. And I was hibernating a bit myself— holed up and doing nothing much else than writing and working. My relationship of many years finally unraveled in my hands. I was saddened by the loss, but my days went on just the same. My eyes were fixed on the trail I was following, popping my head up occasionally to look around and see where I was (and if I’d made any progress), and then back down and determined. That’s how it continued for awhile, my plant and me, surviving on just what we needed to get by.

I moved to another location, bringing my companion with me. This place was selected for its efficiency, and because it aligned with my overall mentality. All I ever wanted was a space of my own that was quiet and that I could wake up and start my day without any distractions.

The plant found a home in my kitchen for a bit, trying to harness the morning sun that roused me. But ended up beneath my bedroom skylight for the evening light.

Moving in the right direction, with no real burden or obstacle, and no one to dictate where the trail might lead. You can imagine my surprise when someone came along unexpectedly.

I just popped my eyes up and there he was—caring and good company. Willing to tag along with me as he sorted out where he was going too. It all kinda fell in place. And I understood more than ever, something had been missing, that I’d been so preoccupied I had hardly noticed what, until he was looking at me with his kind eyes, as though he had found me. And I just knew he would love me like no other.

Here is my plant today. It’s been just over a year since my graduation, and I see this as a sign for wonderful things ahead.

I Used to be a Painter

I Used to be a Painter

Recently I set up a space to paint in my bedroom because the space that was designated as a studio when we moved into our new home here in Vermont has not yet been insulated or wired with electricity or prepared in any way for the winter.  I was excited about the new outbuilding that used to be sugar house for making maple syrup by the previous owner and his son. 

It's a building at the far end of the backyard and the walls slide open to the hillside behind it. There is a glorious amount of light during the day when the windows and doors are open. I pictured it as the spot where I would find my way once again to the painter that has resided inside me my whole life, but who has been more ignored than not in much of my adult life.

I was like a little kid claiming my fort when we first walked the property last Spring. Once the dust had settled in mid July after the move here I set up my easel and drafting table, some shelves, stacks of old portfolios stuffed and breaking at the seams. I put a rug over the cement slab floor and propped a big heavy mirror against the wall. I brought a comfy chair to rest before the table and in the mornings I would walk across the wet grass in my bare feet with a cup of tea and once I opened it up I would just sit and look around and consider what the new work would look like. 

 I carried big Mason jars of water out to my "studio", God, I loved the sound of it, "my stuuudio"...I had finally found a space that wasn't squeezed into a corner, with a ceiling high enough to accommodate my easel, a gorgeous wooden Grumbacher easel purchased for a song more than thirty years ago. I paid $18 for it to a classmate who just didn't want to drag it with him when he finished school. It didn't fit in his Volkswagen Bug either. It has moved and been stored countless times. I have photos of my two oldest daughters climbing around it as a toddler and preschooler, sticking their faces out the bottom legs and wheeled frame on a back porch in Marlborough, New Hampshire. I had returned to undergraduate school as a special ed major and an art minor and was just starting to paint and participate in exhibits after what was quite a long break. Years back I had been a painting major at a small state college in Pennsylvania. I was just starting to get some momentum when life shifted. Life always seems to be shifting and for whatever reason, painting waits until things settle down.

About twelve years ago I had a space that was cavernous and empty except for my easel and paint and brushes. I worked all day then drove to that space in the evening, where, for hours, I would let loose. I played loud music, worked on large pieces of masonite, danced between them, got messy, and I could feel myself growing with every image that found its way to the surfaces. They were not all beautiful, but they were impressions of places that I passed and people I saw and they were shown to a modest crowd who loved them enough to ask for more. And then I stopped painting. I didn't stop looking and thinking about painting. I just stopped painting.

As the summer light changed and fall came fast it was clear that my new space was not going to get attention. There were too many other things competing. I was about to start a new job. The house needed a bit of work. The days grew shorter and there was no light left by the time I came home in the evenings. Concerned that the art that was stacked out back would not tolerate the temperature changes, one Saturday I moved it all to the house in a wheelbarrow, taking many trips across the yard that had now become frosty. Since the extra rooms in the house were set up for guests, I figured it made little sense to drag the easel, so I settled for the drafting table. I wheeled it to the house too.

There is something important about the space in which art is created. It needs to be a dedicated space. It needs light. It needs walls that will allow tape and tacks for images and words that inspire. It needs to have electric outlets so that music can be played. It needs to breathe and to be a place where I can breathe and let go of all other things that demand so much of me in my life.

The corner of my bedroom is not such a space.

 I love my job. My job is hard and it is not who I am as much as what I do. I know that I am supposed to make art. I wonder what it would be like to wake up every day and do just that. I wonder how it might evolve over time. I know that I will find my way back to being a painter and when I do, the space in which I do it will grow and change with me.