Inside the Spin-Mosaic Studio

A bumble bee is a scientific phenomenon of impossibility. So is the flight of a caped child in superman pajamas.

According to any math this side of heaven, a bee's wings are too small to carry the weight of its own fuzzy body. Like an airplane lined up on the tarmac awaiting the go-light and a flapping neon flag, a bee should take off...and fall. Instead, it flies.

I like to imagine that it is simply and magnificently the hand of God who reaches down from heaven and gently lifts and sustains the upward and forward momentum of each tiny bee belly as it buzzes around in its meandering daily pollen hunt.

According to my son, when he wears his superman pajamas, the only thing holding him back from flight is that his cape, like the wings of the bumble bee, is too small. Today, at 9, he is wiser. But yesterday, at 4, he believed.

I couldn't tell you how many times he leaped...and fell...believing that the size of his cape was the only thing holding him back.

He kept jumping. He kept falling. He kept getting up. Until one day, he finally outgrew the pajamas.

Over and over, my son didn't view his wipe-outs as falling. He viewed his wipe-outs as flying. Be it...ever so short of a flight and ever so hard of a landing.

Is falling defined as the point where we land? What about the split-second we are air-born and free-flying? Or, is the essence of a fall defined by how we get back up...despite whatever is now throbbing and whatever new limitations have been set before us?

Maybe it is not so important how we fall, how we justify the fall, whose fault the fall was, how the fall could have been prevented or how fast the injuries will heal. The glory of a fall is found in the getting-back-up part, then helping others to get up, too.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I started a household mantra when my oldest daughter was the age that my blue-eyed baby grandson is now. When my young mama-bear eyes saw she had tripped over something (or nothing at all), I would quickly assess the severity then clap my hands with a sing-song, "Jump up! Brush off! Keep going!"

She learned these lifeskills before she could even talk. What life-skills? Persistance. Tenacity. Optimism. These.

The older she got, the older she gets  (and the older I get), the more I realize that getting back up after a fall is a lifeskill that morphs.

I am not speaking of "falling" as in falling from grace, or falling in moral choices, or falling from status, or standard-ish falling phraseology like fallllling in love, though these could apply. I'm talking about the stumble that shakes us off course; the stumble...that makes us second guess. This is the stumble that bruises the ego and imprints a wince.

Some falls we cannot prevent. Some falls find us. We didn't want them, and we don't want them still. Some falls leave scars, or worse...lifelong limitations.

A blue-purple shadow-bruise is fresh on my mind that peeks out between the cuff of my sock and the frayed denim edge of my favorite ripped jeans right now as I sit here.

I tripped while stepping over a broken cello propped in the corner of my art studio awaiting mosaic surfacing for a symphonic concert. I caught the trajectory of my wipe-out just before my forehead intercepted the curved metal edge of a gallon of paint sitting open on my farm table.

No doubt, the can would have tipped over, dripped onto the floor, ruined several projects in mid-process and absorbed the next hour of my day cleaning up. Cleaning up is grim business. Avoid.

I caught the worst-case scenario of my fall, but could not miss the inevitable force of gravity. This...is the pre-cursor skill that is hardest to teach a toddler or a young boy in a too-small cape.

With my body crumpled in a heap on the cold cement floor like one of the idea-sketches on newsprint that I pepper my trashcan with daily, I was instantly thrown into the tailspin of thinking like an adult; foreseeing all that could have been worse and seeking to point blame for the cello being in my way.

An aftershock of 100 other tripping blunders flooded to my mind. I mentally hashtagged myself as #CLUMBSY... again!

that time I pinched my finger in the door hinge---

dropped the waffle iron on my knuckles---

tripped over the lawn chair and face planted---

took one for the team at the roller skating rink--- 

I should think with the mind of a child----a golden haired child with a smile that keeps on truckin' despite the strawberry-colored knees with half-scabs she wore the entire summer before she turned 2. Because...she...never...stopped. She kept going. So must I.

A child doesn't stop to conceptualize how they could have avoided the trip that topsy-turvied their body into a free-fall sprawl to the floor. A child doesn't compare their fall to another child's fall and decide they could have been more graceful. A child doesn't second-guess that maybe they should return to crawling because walking is proving not so predictable.

As we age--as we grow up and grow older,

      as the reasons we fall become clearer,

            and the reasons we delay in our arising

                  become even more clear...

...we realize how much the the laws of gravity in science books do not address. They do not confront the effort of mind and body required to get back up and be stronger for the fall. Live and learn.

Don't we know that the next step required to get back up after we fall is harder than the last step before you fell...when your ankle was not bruised and bleeding? 

The first next step...hurts...after falling. The effort that next step takes is equal to far more than a mere continuation of the planned path.

      Jump up. Brush off. Keep going.

Several years after my daughter learned to keep going, I then had the privilege of witnessing my son keep going as a 4-year old in Superman pajamas.

He would skip across the living room and then...go down...fast. He stood up fast, too. He would jump back up, brush off, and strike a superhero pose complete with furrowed brow.

"I didn't fall." He would say in a voice of confidence likely mimicked from his suit-and-tie dad. "I was trying to fly."

"Oh! I see. What happened? What made you fall?" (So like an adult to need to identify the source/point blame...?). 

"My cape." he said matter-of-factly.

Me: "Noooo...you didn't trip over your cape. Its way up at your shoulders."

Superboy: "That's the problem. I need a bigger cape. I didn't fall, I jumped to fly and landed on the floor instead of the air. If my cape was bigger I wouldnotta (one word!) fell, I woulda flied!!!"

This is a spirit of strength, imagination (slight childlike delusion), and a persona of faith. I have no idea exactly how to apply this spirit to my weekly fallings and fumblings, but there is some truth here that sings a new song. Whatever the tune may be for you, it was this song I hummed as I climbed up from my face-plant position in the corner of my studio and limped away.

I couldn't stop my daughter from falling, but I bought her colorful bandages.

I couldn't sew my son a new cape big enough to defy gravity, but I bought him a fluffy red Superhero's Landing Pad (blanket) to drape over our living room floor to soften the blow.

I couldn't stop myself from tripping in the studio. But, after I wrapped my foot, I pulled the cello out and sketched a design for it's pending artwork.

Jump up. Brush off. Keep going. It is the "keep going" part that may take some creativity! And, like the hand of God gently holding up the fuzzy belly of each bumble bee on the planet, may we each also help turn the spirit of falling into the spirit of flight for others.

What might that look like? Artists envision. When I sat down to sketch an illustration for this article, it looked like this...

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You may have noticed that the art featured with this story included one superhero. But, my words thus far make no mention of the 2nd figure in the artwork. True. In my eyes, there is not one superhero in this picture, there are two. But, the story of the 2nd is simply not mine to share.

You see, experiences are proprietary; intellectual property of the memory and of the heart. The story I shared above was plucked from my own memories of my superman-son. The actual story that best fits this artwork illustrates a memory shared and witnessed by a friend.

Two strangers meet eye-to-eye, one young and one less young. The boy wears his courage on his back in the form of a cape, because he has more reason than most to need courage...so does his mother who stands beside him.Words are shared in the happenstance seconds. Courage is exchanged. A grateful mother walks away emboldened.

Next to my favorite fictional stories of Ferdinand the Bull Animated Movie, and The One and Only Ivan (Gorilla--Disney), and the real news story I saw of window washers outside a children's hospital dressing like superheroes to cheer up kids, the full version of this true story ranks at the top! As an artist, I believe that pure art should be what bubbles over and floods the soul with truth. I couldn't not pick up my paintbrush.

So, the artwork and story...and the story that is not mine to share fully, is a soft salute to all the real live superheroes in this world...the ones who help others to "jump up, brush off, and k____  g______." What are your superpowers?

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