Heart Box Studio

Bird Girl

The light moved fast, painting shadows over the faded green field. There was the last cold kiss of a regular Tuesday and my hands cupped his fingers as his feet swept the frosted field. There was the crack of branch and swing of arms and the quick break of fingers falling apart from the nest of palm and thumb. And there was the race to the pond, the sound of nylon scratching with each stride and his small chirp of discovery.

The air was still and we made small waves with our hum and breath. The abandoned cities of cattails and tall bent grasses opened doors and windows to mark our return. And the quiet light sent secret messages only our hearts could hear.

And there was a yawn in the bend of his hand, a hollowed out center that yearned to be thread with the quiet presence of love and her melodic song.

And it was his small fingers inside my hand, the pulse under his nails, the criss cross veins running alongside my worn wrinkles that told me to listen.

The red winged blackbirds were gone. The ones that dove under deep blue skies and sang in urgency as we moved around the nests once filled with egg and chick.

And her voice, the one hidden behind thunder, the warning that rumbles behind the protective mama heart, telling the rain just where to land. She was there, in the shadow of fall, under winter's restless light. She whispered. This is home.

She said she needed words. Something that could line the inside of her coat on winter days, when the light felt broken and dim. And there was some kind of respite in her wings, a hiding place from all of the feeling and hurting. And her feathers were lined with dust, the kind that came from uncovering secrets.

Sometimes the light can bend in a certain direction, turning all of the leaves into wings, the branches into bare, naked limbs reaching for the nearest cloud. And there, when the light is just right, I can see the outline of her nest, still warm with memory.

These fingers entwined, these moments engrained, are the intricate weaving of her smile, her eyes bright with hello, a dangling paintbrush between two loose fingers. It is the faint breath between twig and leaf, the protection and warmth seated in the depth of her hold.

He held the nest close and lifted a leaf from its center.

"It's made from all that remains, the stuff left behind. A shoelace or wrapper from some old gum. A broken piece of grass or ribbon left in the rain. Bits of paper and mud. It's all here. Inside this little nest. Nothing is forgotten."

And her love feels like the wind blowing even when the windows are closed.

And there are the times I feel most alone in the forest, when I can no longer identify specie or skin, when the smell of grass is dull and the bark no longer a pattern to follow. When my eyes are closed and the caves covered with doors of boulder and stone.

"Will you hold my hand?"

And her words of love, the ones she wrote on the insides of her fingers, so when our hands met, I could feel her story told between my thumb and the curve of her nail. These words are my ladder to this place you call home.

"Will you hold my hand?"

"I already am."

And I can hear her quiet song on the flutter of a bird's wing, carrying away the worry, the fear, the small voices caught in nets. And the place she wrote her story still remains on these hands, each vein a path past grown wrinkles and tree lined fingertips, each holding a nest from their wiry bends.

And her heart, the one that shines each time a leaf lifts in a breeze. Her heart, entwined in the deepest part of this nest, rests with each rise and fall of breath.

So I move things around, make a space for the cutting and grafting, the weaving and stitching, the building of nest and home. So these moments, woven in love, the curl of her hair, the way her eyes filled with tears just before she laughed, the way her voice paused before exclamation, the way the light would soak up her motherhood just so it could shine. I will place you here. Forever.

And I remember the hands that cradled this wreck of a girl with one, curled lash wink, the way love can sometimes feel like a leap, a dance over hot stone ash. 

And the fragile walk through dark forests, searching, while your hands lift me over thorn and brush. And there you are, making friends with the moon, smiling over a bent sunset, pushing its warm blanket over our skin. And your song, the fingers tucking in each loose corner.

And to find love perched, held between breaths, enough time for my eyes to fill with tears. Sometimes all I can see are the lashes under her eyes, all of the wishes set loose on the wind, and the sunset when the waves were so loud we had to yell over their roars. 

I will place you here. Between the dew of this one morning and the crest of this fallen night. Your love thread between wrapper and twig, damp clay and fallen hair. Between the bend of my finger and the joint of his hand. In the motherhood I forgot to own and the friendship I carry in the smallest pocket of my heart, this nest,

made from all that remains.

*And a film made during the creation of this shadowbox, filmed by the lovely,  Lara Vagenius. Thank you, beautiful girl.

Found: One Lost Day

I bought him his first piece of luggage last month as we rolled one, oversized shopping cart through IKEA. He spread his hands out and wrapped four small fingers around the bright orange handle.

"This one."

He keeps sliding books and bent cars into the sides and pockets. 

And this open suitcase gets piled higher with broken toys and pens without caps and I harness restraint and curve back into patience. 

We leave tomorrow. Two weeks and golden light, feet dangling softly on an island's clay shore. Lost canoe paddles and spontaneous cliff jumps. There will be quiet and bird calls memorized and soft morning breathing in bunk's scratchy comforters. There will be gentle rain tapping and too high swinging. 

I lost the video almost three years ago, shortly after I sent it to the person I love, this person I dreamed of as I made it. There, with one old camera and unsteady hands. Because this person's hills were too steep and sometimes the road can be lifted by one song's note. Sometimes the moon calls us back just as the clouds pull the curtain closed.

And as I packed and cleaned and shuffled four new journals alongside his red goggles and save-it-for-later candy wrappers, it was there. He found it.

And a four-years-ago memory, the little video I made with unsteady hands, under clouds that travelled past question marks and "I miss you" greeting card longing was found. And a door, made silent somewhere in my heart, was opened again. Just to remind me that promises are kept if we keep them folded inside the deep pockets of hope.

They are four years older now, these little ones. Four years past wrinkles and showers of thunderous days. They stand in a new spring, grown tall in the wild weeds.

 music: sufjan stevens, "sister"

Free love

Dear Valentine,

   May your days be filled with chocolate and glitter, doilies and lace. Let your hands find scissors and glue sticks and empty hearts to color with love. Fill your homes with the smell of cookies and cakes and wait till later to clean up the mess. Jump a little higher, hold a hand longer, hug with both arms and kiss with your heart. 

 

And if you find you have spent all of your hours eating chocolates and holding hands, well, then, here is a free printable Valentine for you to use and enjoy! Click on the image to pull up a printable PDF, sized for an 8.5" x 11" folded card. I find it looks quite sweet on a creamy white or ivory colored cardstock paper. Enjoy and share!

 

And for a musical interlude....one of my favorites.

 

Painted mistakes and brushes of love.

I am always utterly shocked and amazed when anything I set out to create actually ends up resembling the very thing my heart envisioned. Because more often than not, it doesn’t, and yet it is somehow better. I think of all the ways I had to change a paint color, a word, a brush, a pen, a shape or a curve. Sometimes it requires starting over, developing a new technique or medium just to get it close. Sometimes this can take an hour, other times...years.

I think about how my art has changed since I have come to accept these little mistakes, as my forgiveness grew, my perfectionism died, leaving room for all that God would put into the mistakes and creases of my creation.

I have accepted this grace into my life and desperately try to instill it into my children.  My oldest son will be twelve next week and sometimes all I can see are the mistakes I have made. All of the ways I missed the opportunity to hold that tiny hand in mine and hear his soft breath on my face as he slept. Too busy for an extra hug, the one with the neck breaking squeeze. Too busy for a silent moment to hang between us and catch all of his worry. For all the times my eyes were blinded by fear and duty and responsibility, when all he really wanted to know was that he wasn’t alone in these pains of a growing heart unfurling its wings.

And how many times I have fallen only to see forgiveness come and blanket my weakness with love, to gift me with the additional energy needed for one more bedtime story, to grant me the calm to speak softly when I all I could hear was the scream inside my own heart.

All of these mistakes, all of my failings were never mistakes at all. They make us. They shape us. It’s our creator changing His brush stroke, choosing another color, giving our story new words. It’s His voice leaning in to whisper, “It’s okay. I love you anyway. You’re not alone.”

There is this light, this open door, if only I can stand still long enough in one spot to let it make its way over me, to hold me and soften me. So the hands I hold around this boy are free to make mistakes. That he would see his mother be made new over and over and over again. So he would learn that his mistakes are not burdens or pockets of shame, but rather the very holes inside of us that let the light in.

This boy, twelve years old soon, in all of the ways we have stumbled around each other, tripping over our mistakes, falling into grace and forgiveness. My sweet boy of twelve, you are loved not for the mistakes you won’t make.

I love you sweet boy, for the all of the ones that you will.  

You can come to me....... from Heart Box Studio on Vimeo.

  

 

 

 

Fly

Sometimes a dream is like riding your bike without your hands, peddling and reaching, stretching your fingers to the clouds. Certain, that if you reach far enough, the tips of your fingers just may touch the white cotton belly of an impending rainstorm.

 

Other times, a dream is the escaped light between a tree’s bare branches, available - a respite, an escape from the darkness.

 

And then there is the dream that comes from the wind. It wavers and dances and skips through the air, like a lost leaf finding the ground, and there you are, quietly wondering if it wasn’t meant for you at all, rather a runaway idea that fell gently into your lap, lifted by the wind, chased by the day.

 

I often wonder what it would feel like to catch the tail of a dream, that maybe it’s the chase, the search and longing for – the lonely, solitary dream that actually gives my day its light.

 

But most days, this dream is a love that knocks on my heart. It stands at the door, jumping up and down, waiting for me to push the door wide open. And when I finally open the door, when the fear has been put to bed, we run through the tallest grass, letting the sun follow us into a burnt sunset. And it’s this very same dream that lives somewhere inside my children. It runs with them, plays with them, searching for forgotten frogs and broken butterfly wings. I see it in two skinny legs attached to a pair of red shorts. I see it in the highest bounce on the trampoline. I see it in slow motion summer days.

 

I see it in their hearts. 

 

 

Sing from your dreams.

Sing from your heart.

Sing from the places

That are falling apart.

 

You are loved.

You are brave.

You are His.

You are true.

 

Your heart is a story

Written Only for you.

               

 

 

To Begin.

 

 

To begin.

I'm letting go.

To spread my wings.

To let it grow.

 

This is it. 

It's finally here. 

The dream I've dreamed.

So close. So near.

 

So here it is.

I'll start anew.

This is my heart.

Given to you.

 

Thank you for visiting Heart Box Studio!

I hope my art brings you much love on your

beautiful journey.

My Etsy store will be opening September 12, 2011.

Yippee!!