Maira Kalman, with her words and paintings, animates the snapshot moments that speak of how our lives exist in stand-alone compartments that may or may not seep from yesterday and into tomorrow. One of my failings or gifts is looking for and, mostly, finding a Bigger Picture, a context within which there is meaning and portent in anything from (I exaggerate) a toothpick to bending the space/time continuum. At the same time, I have come to know that some experiences are simply gems, cut unlike any other and residing in solitary perfection on the pedestal of a day, an hour. They have no history, no expectation, they just are and our only work is to love and savor them as that.
Ms. Kalman walks and tells us why. My response to this is bittersweet, as walking for me is a challenge mostly beyond my capability, at least for today. Getting about inside my home and for necessary increments here on our apartment grounds is hard work, done because it is what there is. In my dreams I am always mobile, agile, ageless. I move from here to there with ease and I dance and climb lighthouse stairs, stand in lines and in conversation at parties. I miss walking, which was transportation for many periods of my life. I miss seeing what one sees when afoot, I miss the freedom of pace, the discoveries of which Kalman speaks. How do we find that mind-clearing motion when walking is not one of the choices? When not present to absorb and interpret, first-hand, the neighborhood and the directions in which it expands, how do we release the mind to travel as a passenger, an observer, and not the museum tour guide deconstructing - or enhancing - each object viewed? There must be a way. I want to find it.
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12 comments:
Thank you for posting that -- I really loved it. I have several of Kalman's books -- what an incredible sensibility she has --
I was just thinking about walking today. I'm back in the town I grew up in and I was remembering how we used to walk everywhere. Then in college (same town), we started riding bicycles plus walking. It was nothing; just what we did. Today I drive everywhere. I miss walking.
Elizabeth - Thank you. Because she thought she couldn't write, she drew...aren't we fortunate someone told her she could do both? She always refreshes me. xo
Rubye - I miss walking. With the bus for longer distances, walking was the way to get to school, to friends' houses, to church, to the market, the library, the soda fountain, dance lessons, even the movies. Living briefly in D.C., I got to walk a bigger city and found so much (depending on the weather) within walking distance. I'm glad that my dreams still have me mobile. I'll take that as a good sign. xo
Marylinn, I took a break from working on my manuscript to read blogs, and read this post & listened to the video. I was stuck trying to come up with a title, so I walked around the block. Nothing came to me, so I started to walk around again, and stopped and sat for a while on a bench, just ruminating. Decided to turn back home, and when I got there, my neighbor/friend was sitting on my front steps using my wi-fi. I told her my dilemma, ran some titles past her, and she gave me some input. The result: I now have a title for the MS, and it's already in the mail to a press who requested to read it.
I can't thank you enough for contributing in such a positive way to the evolution of what I hope will be my first book.
Your post made me think seriously about the fact that I take walking for granted, something which I'll never do again.
Bless you.
xo
Kalman, walking, art and thinking.
Made my day.;)
T. - Your first book! I hope so, too. It sounds as thought the groundwork has been done. Thank you. So many things we must remember not to take for granted. Wishing you great success. The right title is a very good sign. xo
Antares - Yay! She only gives us her best, lucky us. xo
You have one of the most mobile minds I know of, Marylinn. It's out there walking, as far as I can tell. Thanks for sharing from it.
Penelope - Thank you. I could not have asked for a compliment that would please me more. It does get about as best it can, often wandering very, very far. xo
Marylinn, well, now I am in tears because that second graph illuminated how I think my mother, for whom walking has become very difficult, must feel and I am grateful, only that, to be allowed inside that experience.
And the writing of it is simply exquisite.
Angella - My thanks. It may be a fine line - it feels like one, one of which I am not quite sure - between complaining and examining. But if we didn't speak of what haunts or at least challenges us, how could anyone know? My heart with your mother, and with you. xo
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