Grandma

Today, the wind and the windows hummed the deepest baseist chord

A guttural tone that mimicked my grandmother’s fret. 

“Lydia took a turn,” she’d say, never saying in what direction. 

“You’ll catch your death,” she’d scold, never explaining how. 

She baked the tiniest of muffins from the tiniest box and tell me not to eat them. 

I’d swat her hand when she’d help me with my dress for church.

“No man will ever have you,” she’d warn, without a trace of doubt. 

“Your independence will be the death,” she’d say, without any clarification. 

A gust, the rain, more leaves on the ground than on the trees. 

Grandpa Still Snowboards - How Staying Still Doesn't Allow Us to Grow

What’s the name of that restaurant? You know, the one on Irving, no, on Cicero, no, on Milwaukee? You know… the one with Baked Alaska*, it’s on the tip of my tongue…

That searching for a word, it’s called anomia. I’ve had run ins with it for a long time. I admit, a catalyst for retiring at the first chance came after sitting in meetings and feeling stupid. The times I couldn’t find the memory of the results of a previous day’s meeting, or I’d look at someone and couldn’t come up with their name, let alone their kid’s names. When anomia strikes, it erodes my self-confidence and immediately makes me think I will be in “the home” before the bananas turn yellow. 

Not so fast…. In the last few days, after truly launching my child across the country into his life after graduate work, after a year of retirement, after four years of learning to paint, and two and a half years of living on my retirement income, I’ve realized I put off focusing on my own growth and development in this next part of life. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been talking about it with whomever will listen… friends, neighbors, the Whole Foods cashier.  I typically spew the first part of my exploration like the gush from a fire hose, as the unsuspecting ask, how are you? Fine. I’m trying to figure out my life. I am done with health care, could use some money, I want a life of meaning, and painting and people, should I move? And on and on. 

It’s Wednesday and I have a wide open day, ripe for me to scratch off the items on my to-do list that extends to a second side of paper. I look forward to my still life painting class at the other end of my day that is part of my self directed curriculum on becoming an artist.  

Development as an artist is one of two successful elements I can claim on my plan to retire with intention. The other, which I may delve into more at another time, was living on my retirement income for more than a year prior to declaring a retirement date. Once I felt confident that I could exist, I set a date first in my own mind, and eventually with my employer. 

Which brings me back to today. I’m eyeing tchotchkes on a shelf I want to clear… for good, while packing my back pack for today’s attempt at a good submission for a plein air competition in Schaumburg.  I’m feeling pressure to get on with my life in the near term, and make sense of the rest of my days. Stat! Gratefully, I woke up to an email from one of my friends who’d sent a link to a TedTalk that she thought spoke to my woman’s “search for meaning.” It does. It’s by Bill Thomas, MD. a Harvard trained geriatrician who is reframing aging. I listened to the Ted Talk and intrigued, found another, more meaty presentation that got me to breathing a little easier. 

One of his messages is about anomia – the word finding issue I mentioned above.  When a young person stores a word in their brain, they don’t know a lot, and there is a lot of room to store words in their brain. Their filing system is simple, a single filing cabinet. If you live long, you have many filing cabinets, with many words, filed in different locations for different reasons. When you can’t think of a name of a restaurant or a person, it’s actually a consequence of how much you’ve stored.  

Research has shown that when people are asked to recall, young people remember the details, elders remember the gist. Elders have the store of knowledge to connect many aspects and pull on the architecture of the brain to activate and retrieve from different parts. Our brains have the power to provide a broader view of the issue. In other words, we elders have the gist of the story. In that sense, Bill Thomas jokes, “young people are neurologically disabled.”  

Yet, as a society, we don’t think in these terms. I smiled at Doctor Thomas’ concept of how we ineffectively cast “still” in our language. My Aunt Edith at 84 still drives. Grandpa still snowboards at 91… barefoot.  We are measured and somewhat revered by how we STAY the same. If we don’t stay still, we are disappeared.

Remember taking a child to the pediatrician and receiving a report in weight and height, or later talking with the child’s teachers about their maturity?   We have metrics to show change and growth from childhood, through adolescents and into adulthood. We recognize a fourteen year old who hasn’t dropped their blanky is acting inappropriately for their age. A twentysix year old still living at home…. (oops, scratch that example.)  Even with social trends like kids living longer at home, we recognize the end of the younger developmental phase, yet we don’t have a positive, recognizable phase for after adulthood. We are destined to stay still or disappear. It's a limbo, a time before death. It's not a recognized time for its own growth. For the most part, we measure peoples in terms of loss of adulthood. Dr. Thomas offers the name to this time as elderhood. And, he doesn't see it as staying still. 

I can relate… I am becoming an elder. I am done with certain things in adulthood. I am done being a slave to a work schedule. I am done with progress reviews that indicated my worth to an employer. I am done with conformity to fashion, cosmetics and other things that dictate how I must present myself. I really don’t understand cosmetic surgery, except for those days when I feel myself disappearing. I am done with raising a child… we now can have adult conversations. And, I am ready to grow. 

I am ready to reframe how I think about this time in my life. I want to create. I want to create meaning. I want to  be a successful painter- it burns me when someone asks, is this a hobby? Not really, I responded on Monday. The guys who asked followed up with, so you're making a living? Not a big one, I told him. But I am, not in money maybe, but this is big living for me.  

This morning, I am grateful to my friend who sent the link to Doctor Thomas’ talk (I encourage you to watch it) and I am grateful to him for helping me reframe my sense of self and my sense of meaning. 

Let the gist begin! 

*Community Tavern 

The Evaporating Moistures of Snow Globes and Me

Last week at an antique mall, I saw a collection of snow globes, all with half of their moisture evaporated. Trees, spires and animal heads rose above the waterline. I woke up this morning thinking  about them and that's kind of how I feel some days at this age. And, I am not sure of the meaning of having my head above water.

Dating after 60 - A Social, Intellectual, Spiritual and Physical Experience

I made my bed, then made my coffee all the while thinking about this man I’ve been out with four times. Lunches, walks, dinner, antiquing, kissing, caressing, making out, no sex, so to speak. As I pulled up the comforter, I thought of the lively and thoughtful conversations, as I fluffed the pillows, I thought of the no sex, so to speak, and, as I made coffee, a sense of loneliness rushed through me. In a moment, the fun, the pheromones and the rudeness of reality collided.

My reality contains the years of finding plumb emotionally after ill-fated relationships, righting myself financially from near-bankruptcy, finding comfort in my independence and contentment in my interests. I live intentionally. I pay attention to and regularly assess the elements of wellbeing… my spiritual-creative, physical, social, intellectual, emotional, financial wellness. I say this to make a case that I work from my head about my heart… except, when it comes to dating, which does not fit neatly into any element of wellness. 

The loneliness is the chasm between my intentional investment in being whole without needing someone else, and wanting someone else to share my investment. 

Talking relationshipping with Ashley, my sage, thirty-two year old hairdresser, she advises me to be myself.  After sixty-four years, however, there is so much of myself to be! And, to connect myself with someone who, (must be) equally as full of a life and interested in sharing their investment in themselves, exponentially compounds the amount to be unsheltered. I find myself exhausted in the very idea, yet more wanting as more is revealed, and less capable as I realize the extent of the challenge I've created. 

My extrovert social self is gleeful in meeting new people. My spiritual is fed by learning more and deepening intimacy. With curiosity, the intellectual continues to probe and find connections and meaning... more intimacy. The physical offers stamina, connection and in some cases, a sexual response; and that god-damn-it, throws the whole, well intentioned, intellectual thing off kilter. 

The chasm narrows and deepens as tectonic plates shift. I started the oatmeal.

Bone of Arc and the Stories that Help Us Understand the World

As a staunch Catholic, when I was eleven, I chose for my confirmation name Joan of Arc, because she had a horse. I've read and watched her story since in many versions, my favorite, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,  a translation by Jean Francois Alden of the memoirs of Louis de Contes, her page. In fact, Mark Twain wrote Recollections under the Alden pseudonym as a serial story for Harpers, from the perspective of a fictional writer about a fictional character serving Joan of Arc. My second favorite is Bone of Arc starring the famous terrier, Wishbone.

Detail has never been my strong point. History.... I get the gist.

Since that slap on the cheek from the bishop, I've grown to appreciate Jean d'Arc for her leadership, her loyalty and her steadfast faith... all on a horse. When my son did his university junior year abroad in Rouen, as his patron, I packed my valise and along with my sister journeyed to France to visit. We toiled over espresso and croissants in cafes, and wine, baguettes and cheese in other cafes, while he toiled in his oenology class. 

Late, one grey afternoon, sipping a red at a table outside overlooking a church with an imposing cross, out of place with its modern lines, we learned we were actually looking at the exact location my patron saint was burned at the stake. The tight square of buildings surrounding that place, made it easy to imagine the din of the crowds that witnessed and cheered her demise. Last summer, once more astonished at how the dots connect, I sat through a presentation at the Smithsonian in DC, celebrating Julia Child's 100th birthday, I learned that she sat in the window of the cafe a few feet from where we sat then, overlooking the same scene, without the church, and decided to teach women to cook French.

The subtleties are not lost on me. Eight years ago, I wrote a short, fanciful story, Embers,  (posted below in the previous blog) about the person who cleaned up after the pyre that took Jean d’Arc's life. I admit, I did no research for the tale except remembering the books I'd read, the videos I'd watched over the years, what I gleaned from the tour of the jail that held her and that long glass of wine in the square where her execution took place. The story describes my imagination of how they strapped her to a post with leather straps, a reluctant man with a leprous disease sent to deal with the ashes, then freed and cured in a JOA miracle. Though the movies show her eyes toward God, none have shown a montage of logistics. I made them up.  

In the writing group, the number of minutes each person gets to comment on a story is based on the quantity of people reviewing and divided by the quantity of manuscripts. Usually a strident timekeeper metes out the typical 2 or 3 minutes. Reviews cover logic, grammar, word choice and ideas to improve the story. No matter how many times I put mine through the ABC grammar reviews on line, my stories cause battles among grammarians about comma usage… as you might surmise. The evening I submitted Embers for review three people pulled me aside on the way to the Celtic Knot, the usual post-group watering hole, to make a personal comment about my Joan of Arc story.

Jeff, a psychiatrist who wrote world history thrillers, told me the story was about France and England and I needed to add more political intrigue. Rob, a retired geology professor explained that she’d never be bound in leather, it would burn through; they would have used a form of chainmail. He also told me how bone shards might be left under the chainmail. Mindy, who I first met the year before as Seth, told me the story was about a transgender individual and that theme would make my story relevant.  I learned two important lessons from this experience: People use filters when they read, no matter what the writer intends.  And, writing groups are great, but every comment is filtered and a writer must, in the end, be clear and true to their purpose. (OK, I've learned that a million other ways too, but that evening cemented the learning.)

After posting the story in the previous blog, I read the history of burning people at the stake and felt sick and wondered whether I should remove the post. A while later, before I sat down to write this post, I lit a candle. My long-nose lighter wouldn't light, so I struck a match on a box that I'd picked up at a fancy restaurant. The wick of the candle in the jar stood five inches down from the top, and I could barely get my fist into it. I burned my thumb. Oww. I can't imagine the minds that thought up the torture of burning people alive. 

Joan of Arc provokes discussion. Her story is compelling, whether told by historians, theologians, famous comic writers who thought it best to write under a pseudonym or Jack Russel Terriors. I don't think I am cut out to be a martyr, though some may say I already act it.  I've tried to emulate her leadership and commitment to an ideal. As a preteen, the possibilities of leadership excited me. I grew up to lead a company instead of an army, no doubt with some subtle nudge from my patron. In choosing between paint swatches for our offices, there was no doubt, when down to the final choices in selecting "Maid of Orleans" to surround us.

My favorite but long gone gift from confirmation was a statue with Joan in armor, holding the flag, on a white stallion. Back in those days, we were told that only the good die young. I like that she was a bad ass then. My solace is that I heard I should expect to be a badder ass the older I get. 

. 

Webster - 400,000 Words that Frustrate My Word-Finding

I'm  unhinged by the magnitude and efficiency of the 1968 Unabridged, Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary. Did you know that there are twentysix columns of Un-words. One merely needs to look up what follows un and know that it's not that… Bam! Words that start with water fill more than two pages. Whoa. It's too bad the earth is running out of water when there are so many words associated with it. Will they be extinct?

I remember hearing on NPR that the word take has more meanings than any other. Unless I look at every page in Webster’s, I can’t say whether the comparison is true, so, I looked it up…online. Take indeed tops the list followed by break, turn and set. For take, the first entry in the ’68 dictionary is a verb that includes 55 meanings plus another column of terms used, such as, to take care or to take it lying down.  There’s a second take-verb relating to getting possession with 12 meanings, followed by a noun with six, relating to the process of taking. The 2015 online list indicates 127 meanings suggesting that in the ensuing years creativity in word making is down. By the way, only the game of Bridge used the term "take out" in '68. No chicken nor synonyms for murder, I guess. 

What a turn in vision Noah Webster took when he set the foundation for this book. It includes 157 pages of supplements including practical business mathematics and terms, air distances between cities, the history of the English language, forms of address, abbreviations, pages of signs and symbols and the history of Canada. It even spells out the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence.

In an attempt to speed the user's interface, (1968 interface, n, a surface that lies between two parts of matter or space and forms their common boundary); the book is constructed with black wells with letters along the edges. I learned from a brochure I found tucked between pages that these features are “stamped in gold” and called “thumb indexed.” They claim and I don’t disagree, that the book is “richly appointed throughout.” The paper is fine, thin and yellowed... both on purpose and now with its 47 years of age. The book is heavy with so many pages and so much information to offer. The description on the insert says its “Monumental- 2.304 pages”, and “Massive- weighs 11 pounds, 4 ounces, 11 inches high x 8 ½ inches wide”. It includes “400,000 word definitions, 2,132 illustrations, many in full color bound in handsome sturdy, buckram”. (I had to look it up. A coarse cotton, hemp, or linen cloth, stiffened with glue or a gluelike substance.)  

The insert includes, in the purchasers hand writing, a curly fine style that reminds me of my grandmother’s, that says, “ordered, 10/28/68 4.65/mo. 13.95 Total.  Seems a bargain now for this massive, monumental resource. That was fall of our senior year.  I remember chipping in coins from fifty or seventy-five cent an hour babysitting jobs to fill up our dad's cars to go to football games, Blazo’s or Big Boy. The gas at the Sunoco station cost around twenty-nine cents per gallon. I never would have purchased something so extravagant. It would take 28 hours of babysitting for me, and I had more critical purchases like 45s, Villager outfits, Sebago Mocs, Bonnie Bell and Monet earrings.

Watching TV one night, I sat Webster’s on my lap, leafed through and noticed an illustration of a zorapteran. Bored, I pulled out markers and colored it, then found other bugs in nearly every letter of the alphabet. I colored from back to front until an acarida. Since '68, publishers replaced engravings, the little pictures with photographic processes, (I learned from Wikipedia), but, it made me wonder how editors determined which words to represent. Pictures aid in understanding a concept. I could never conjure a halberd without the drawing. The little engravings aren't on every page making the information dense... intimidating… so much to know. The illustrations are a relief, a resting place for the eyes and the brain. I wonder whether the priority came from a layout decision or the information? By the way, the first illustration in the book is of an aardvark, already a cool word with its double-a beginning, the last a zoospore balancing out coolness with its double-o middle.

Though I access Thesaurus.com much more than the dictionary, I don’t learn nearly as much using it. I find my word, you know… the one… right… on the tip… of my tongue. I copy the word, X the webpage and edit my Word doc. Done. Each time, I am reminded that at this point in my life, words are precious. They don’t reliably show up for me. Use of Thesaurus.com is increasing. I get as frustrated with myself as I did with my mom when words don’t emerge when I need them. Word finding. It’s part of aging, I’m told. It must be a modern term, because it’s not in the ’68. It, however, doesn’t make me feel modern.

I so love this dictionary for helping me mind my Ps and Qs. 

Word. (as in, to flatter in 1968.)

Self Confidence and the Up Hill Climb of Learning a New Craft

My experience at the easel on Labor Day weekend nearly topped painting, an act that I've come to love after sixteen months of being new. You know that feeling... walking into a meeting where it seems everyone knows more than you?

Arriving at Fort Sheridan north of Chicago, a little after eight, I parked in the prime slot closest to the Lake Michigan.

No horizon came into view as I reached the path.  My friend Lynne who saw the same from a beach a mile up, told me later, "If we were being invaded by stealth ships, they would’ve had the advantage," ... an apt analogy for the scene of WWII artillery just to the right of where I'd set up my equipment.

For most of the past 60 weeks, I’ve visited this spot to capture in watercolor, the Lake, the waves, the sky, the clouds, the trees, the wind, the leaves, and the weeds, to learn about light, and shadows, and glare and seasons, the paper, paints and brushes. The fun, challenge and frustration of painting pleine air requires that the artist deals with scene changes as the earth rotates, the sun rises and lowers,  shadows appear, fall, deepen and shorten from side-to-side… even when it’s grey.

I started out in jeans, flip flops, a long sleeve blouse over a t-shirt and opted because of the grey and haze to leave my wide brimmed hat in the car. Promised rain didn’t materialize; the sun invaded the haze and within an hour I took off my over shirt and wished I had my hat.  I fought the desire to push on my sunglasses to battle the glare because they dull and tint the colors I wanted to capture.

No one came by while I assembled my easel, organized the tray holding brushes, and pigments, poured water into rubber-coated collapsible cup and sketched the scene I planned to watercolor on the 140-pound paper I taped to a board.

The pre-sketch is a new process for me. A teacher last year recommended it, but never did it himself. I decided I wanted to be that accomplished so I’d did as he did. However, over the year, I realized I am not that accomplished and I’ve learned my picture is more likely to turn out as I envision it, if I actually envision it. Duh!

Those sketches look like scribbles. I draw the loosest of shapes, dash lines across for a horizon which slowly comes into focus, and more shapes for trees and fences. The scribbles I've learned map lights and darks which create the better composition. More than once, after hours of painting onsite, returned home and added quick washes on the scribbles and liked that outcome best. No one is supposed to see them. 

A woman’s voice with a hint of Europe came from behind and startled me. “May I see your sketch?” I flashed the scribbles and closed the book. A camera dangled from her neck and a fanny pack surrounded her waist. We talked for nearly twenty minutes and in that time I learned about a different area I wanted to see in the Fort. She learned about my interest in facilitation and we both learned about each other’s writing and decided to exchange emails. Her name I learned is Emma. 

I finally got my paper and board affixed to the easel and a wash applied. Until recently I immediately painted objects into the scene. Reading my urban sketching books, watching You Tube videos and using my repeated visits to the Fort to test techniques, I better understand the value in staking out the scene, plus, preserve white on the page and put in a light wash of color, my renditions now show contrast. This is a huge improvement from paintings as recent as Memorial Day. 

 

A few minutes later, a family approached: Frank the dad, Kylee about four, Ellen in third grade and Grandma. Ellen, came over touched the board and asked if I was painting. 

It’s this kind of question that rocks my confidence that I am doing "it" right. I smiled, worried that maybe I was knitting and dementia is in full episode. I swallowed my sarcasm, humored her and asked if she liked to paint. She did. I asked if she would make a picture in my sketchbook. She agreed and I gave her a sketchbook, I carry for "Guest Artists" along with markers. Ellen set to work. Kylee straddled a razor scooter and drank from a glass bottle of Perrier, Grandma kept walking, and Frank held the markers and encouraged Ellen’s art.

I learned Frank recently registered Ellen for an after school painting class in Wilmette because she is good in that and math. I got a sense that Ellen runs their house. She demanded a different color from her dad, then asked politely for a pen from me, because she wanted to be more precise. She told me that though it looked like a man, the person she drew was a woman. I promised her that I’d remember. Her dad told me they were from China then spoke to his son in Chinese. Ellen signed her drawing, put the caps back on the markers and said good-bye. Her dad asked me if I had grand children and for my phone number. He wrote his number and email on the opposite page from Ellen’s drawing and asked that I call him when I returned there again. I remain confused by his intent and didn’t ask. As they left for the beach, Ellen said, “nin hao.”

Painting away, bikers rolled down hill to my left. The decline there is steep. Bikes sound like bees swarming as they whiz by. On the way back up, the riders sound like steam engines. More than once, I’ve said, “I think I can, I think I can” as they effort to pedal the incline. 

One couple returning from the beach got off their bikes to comment on my work. Empathy told me the wife-leader needed a rest. The laboring husband did too. They complimented the gobbledygook on my paper that minutes before a ten year old questioned its validity as a painting. Their (and several others) praise when my scene is without shape or definition confuses me too. I thank them for their encouragement, though in my eyes the painting at that phase is crap.  They got back on their bikes and I sprayed the paints with my little atomizer bottle to get back to work. 

Behind me, I heard two women discussing someone who disappointed the lady on the far side at a recent funeral. The person closest to me counseled, “People who don’t bother to come to a funeral, aren’t likely to want to do much more for you.” I thought that a bit closed minded but decided I didn’t need to get into the conversation. 

Several people walked by ready for the beach, loaded with blankets, chairs and bags that seemed to contain food. Too bad I didn’t pack an apple. I took a swig from my bottle of water, reminding myself that I should save some if the water cup gets to murky and I could only stay as long as my bladder held out. I don’t like, to leave my stuff unattended there to use the facilities, so to go means completely packing up.  In all my trips to the Fort, I’ve metered the coffee and water well. 

Another couple of women about the same age as the earlier pair, in their fifties, walked by, talking about a person they see at the health club who hogs the machines. Again, I decided to not offer my thoughts.

A man, arms pumping, trekked uphill toward me. A while before, I watched him and another man with a bull dog on a leash, walking down together. He complimented my art then asked if I knew the area.

He told me that they’ve lived in Gurnee for twelve years but decided to explore the shore line by driving down Sheridan Road and accidentally happened on the Forest Preserve.  His partner and the pup caught up but  didn’t stop. He plodded his way up, both he and the dog panting. Watching him, I considered saying, I think I can, I think I can, but when people are on bikes, it doesn’t seem rude. The first man told me that he admired “my attempt at painting.” Ha! Once again, feint praise. 

An Asian gentleman, maybe Korean, wearing a khaki brimmed hat  stopped to chat. He asked whether I was retired. He told me he wanted to learn to paint and would like to paint as good as me when he retires. He lives in the Fort and owns a couple neighborhood liquor stores. I told him I’d been a customer of his and promised to buy more, so he could retire sooner. 

A man and a boy with a fresh outbreak of acne approached and said something nice about the painting. The dad said he wished he could paint, but has no talent. I told him to try anyway and I wished I could tell the boy to change his pillow case every night… it helped my boy along with some dermatological medicine with dire side effects that might have rendered a deformed baby if he got a girl pregnant or maybe made it impossible for me to have grandchildren,  I don’t remember exactly,  because apparently, I look retired. 

The dad said they were visiting from Georgia to attend his oldest son’s graduation the day before from Basic Training at Great Lakes Naval Academy. My heart broke for him as he described saying good bye to his boy who shipped out the same day for medic training in Texas, “shipped out the same day,” he repeated, like it hadn’t sunk in. No dinner at Maribel or celebration at a Tapas bar as we did for celebrations with my son. I wondered about “shipped out” as an all purpose term. I couldn’t quite picture him taking a boat through the Great Lakes or even down the Mississippi to San Antonio. He asked about things to do, as long as it didn’t mean going downtown to where there were a lot of people. I asked the teenager if he likes cars and suggested the auto museum in Volo and the renaissance fair in that area too. The dad said they were thinking about Gurnee Mall. 

A couple with a big Golden with grey at the jowls, stopped on their way down to the beach. I see them nearly every time I paint at Fort Sheridan. He is Caucasian, stick-figured and tall and nearly always wears a red t-shirt. She is Asian and comes up to his sternum. She must change her clothes because they don’t impress on me. He asked permission to look, leaned in, didnt comment and told me that their whole family is artistic. Their son in law just did all the labels for Burghoff beer in Chicago. 

 

Ellen, Frank, Kylee and Grandma trudged single file from the beach. Ellen wore Grandma’s hat, Grandma pushed Kylees scooter, Ellen asked if I’d like a rock that she found, then went in my bag, found the markers and colored a sliver of it dark blue, then told me I should do more. Frank asked to take a picture with Ellen and my painting which had progressed since they’d been through earlier. They all waved and said nin hao or neha, something I will need to clarify as one seems to be a greeting and the other a greeting to an old person. 

Several pairs of people went down or up and said nothing. 

The artist-couple returned, their dog’s hair matted and darker from a swim and proudly carrying a tennis ball in his mouth. The stick man said don’t let him brush up against you, I didn’t counter. They checked out the painting and said, “See you again,” and climbed on up the hill. 

Another group of two adult women and a rash of kids all on bikes struggled up the hill. The last one, a boy, maybe around eleven years asked if I would draw him. I said if he didn’t pedal any faster I probably could. Mostly, at the speed he was progressing, I worried that he’d fall over. He stopped to look at my painting. I suggested he paint himself, but I got to keep it? He took the sketchbook and markers still out from Ellen. He painted a navy blue half moon then a black u-shaped line beneath for his helmet and strap… a perfect likeness. His mom circled back and watched him. He used the handle bars for his easel and balanced the markers with his knees. His mom said, “What are you drawing?” “Me on my bike.” “Why don’t you get off your bike?” I knew why she asked, it looked awkward. “I’m good”, he replied. He was. His mom circled around again and headed up the hill. He said, “I’d better go, they are leaving me again.” He signed his drawing, “Colin” and took off. 

An older man trying to control a wheel chair with a woman whose head appeared no higher than the back of the chair, reminded me of a Pinewood Derby race car from Boy Scout days as they sped by. “Hell-low”, I heard once they passed. There isn’t much more asphalt to explore at the bottom of the hill.  One must immediately navigate steep, cement steps, the uneven kind used to manage shoreline erosion to get to the beach. So, it was only a couple minutes later that I saw him pushing the wheel chair with his arms tightly outstretched and locked up the private road. A couple minutes later the Pinewood Derby couple flashed down the hill again. Returning by way of the path, he stopped to rest and chat. He found the gate at the top closed. He told me that they were visiting his sister in law from Ohio, She gave him the much needed hat he wore imprinted with Mackinac Island and he hoped to visit there one day. Good-bye were her only words. 

There are a couple themes from this day. First, that painting plein air is not solitary. In pursuing painting or any new interest, I wanted a community. I figured it would be artists discussing perspectives. Little did I know it would be a greater world community who are attracted to an easel and the act of painting. My art community, as it turns out, is intergenerational, international, may not experience painting and includes dogs. Discussions are varied, broad, sometimes intimate and in some instances, the potential to be continued. 

A couple years before I dove in, I saw a couple in Taos, NM painting a mountain scene out of the back of their pick up truck, and I saw people dotting the landscape of Cedarburg, WI, participating in, what I learned was a pleine air competition. It occurred to me that I could be out anywhere in the world, by myself and paint, not feeling the pressure of singleness. This particular day, my need for community was satisfied. And, my interest in being outside without pressure to walk or bike to feel productive and still not look like the little old men on park benches asleep with a newspaper draped across their chest.

Let me make this clear. I am not retired. I am not a grandparent. The questions about this phase of my life may as well be someone pointing at my stomach asking, are you pregnant?   If I want to be kind to myself, I analyze that they figure I am not a professional artist and therefore must be retired to indulge in painting. If I want to rattle myself, I wonder if cosmetic surgery is a something to consider. 

Though I’ve never heard a disparaging word, I recognize that I use an internal smart ass to react to my imagination of visitor’s internal judgment.  My current self-confidence requires people seeing only finished products, yet, I choose to paint in public. Ridiculous thinking, but my current ridiculous thinking. I plan to rise above it. I figure visitors want to engage, maybe encourage me. It’s a nice gesture but it is confusing. I like to encourage people too, but I am now thinking about the best way to do so. It might be kinder to ask a question rather than make a statement. Where are you heading with that? What perspective are you working on? Or, how will you know when it’s done? I suppose the question could be an intrusion and require a conversation. For my process, that might feel more apt. I am going to try it next time I am tempted to interrupt someone. 

My bladder finally got to a point I needed to pull up stakes. It was a good day to paint. It was a good day to learn.