Golden Girls

There is nothing like being young. Your thyroid usually still works and all those ligaments and muscles are smooth and flexible. You are young and the world is before you. Enter the old ladies... 

I waited for a couple of years on a list, to take oil painting lessons from a lady. I had seen the results of her teaching on a friend's art and was astonished. Plus, my young niece blossomed under her tutelage. I knew how to paint, to draw, heck, I had my own decorative painting business for twenty years and had taught hundreds of children in art classes when the call came for a spot in HER class. I had never dabbled in oils, and my painterly side was suffering because I had become too busy with a couple zillion other things. I know myself... I do best with accountability. 

I decided to be my humblest self (pride, thou art the devil of me). I went into class, acting as if I knew nothing. I was determined to truly learn from this amazing woman. She stood about a foot shorter than me, a good bit older, eyes sparkling like diamonds. She is Nikki, the epitome of everything joyous and beautiful in the world. Smarter than the rest of us, talented, full of energy and opinions. She's tough, with the heart of an angel. The perfect kind of teacher. 

The studio was filled with women, most of them also older than me and sassier, to boot. They looked me up and down and said "well maybe you've inherited some of your niece's talent." I buttoned up and got to work. Nikki took me through the basics of drawing and then we quickly got to work with the oils. It was then that the truth of my pride rose up, ugly and mean, in my heart. These paints were nothing like the acrylics that I had applied on walls in houses and businesses over the metro Atlanta area. They didn't behave. They didn't dry! Nikki kept telling me to blend, when all I wanted to do was tack on another layer. The colors mixed differently, were difficult to wash off, and they got everywhere. I almost gave up. I have plenty of other things to do that I'm good at and this is an expensive hobby...

I decided that I must continue to plod on. It does a body good to do the things that don't come easy to us. We atrophy, because we do less and less of the things that challenge our minds, our bodies. The comfy chair is the enemy of the aged. Not that I'm old. I refuse it. 

Time marched on. Months and months went by as I wrestled with the canvas, the paint, the humility. The ladies around me began to be kind, to care, to help. I found in them the most interesting of people -- intelligent, funny, flawed, richly deep. We have our Wednesday mornings together for about four hours. Sometimes we laugh, gripe, but always oooooh and aaaah over one another's paintings. There have been deaths of loved ones, surgeries, illnesses, children's foibles and the love of grandchildren shared as we ply our pigments. I'm always left with the lovely impression that age is actually beautiful,  not to be feared. Their laugh lines, crinkly hands and wry wit, learned from layers of real life, are simply golden. I've found patience, humility and the underneath parts of art from their precious selves. How lucky is that?   

The Broken Heart

We talk, muse, sing about the beautiful, the lovely pieces of the past, the transcendent. Sitting in church this morning, we heard sweet music, good and sound words, hopeful and true. But even as we ponder the higher, nobler things, we all know heartbreak.

The first love that breaks our soul into pieces, making the world the most unlovely place...the feeling that we will never, ever love again or that life is not worth living anymore. That feeling, right there in our youth, repeats itself all along the way... 

The death of a marriage.

The death of a child.

The disease that destroys a loved one.

The betrayal of a dear friend.

A job that disintegrates into thin air.

Money that takes wings into the night.

The child who jumps ship.

The daughter who lies and won't stop.

The body who loses its strength and cannot get it back.

The ravaging of time that refuses to slow down.

One in the pew experiences unbelievable loss, yet seems resilient. Another has had someone barely slight them, yet it reams out their soul. Some are sensitive, some are stalwart, and then there are those who seem strong but are dying inside with unbearable pain that we cannot see. We all come with our varying temperaments, unique in design and rife with both fatal flaws and promise.

But today, I viscerally felt the heartbreak of so many, the depths of pain that we all encounter somewhere along our way. We all suffer, somewhere, sometime, none spared but not all the same. Today, in my Sunday quiet musing, the hearts breaking and the twin sound of freedom were ringing in my mind. We are bowed down by our imperfections, our mistakes and sins, our resistance to what we ought to do, and the truth of limitations (whatever they might be). 

I am currently reading a book about the wrestling match that is unique to a creative person. This author is laying out the problem of resistance that even the non-creative soul encounters. We all fight gravity, in all its forms. The siren call of the temptation to laze, to wait, to put off, is in everyone. But this writer also talks a lot about freedom, of how to find it by overcoming resistance. His answers to that are nothing that I have found to be true. He believes that to be free, we must outstrip any connection to any form of God. He says that God or obeisance to a Creator makes us slaves and hinders our creativeness. He only sees darkly... for the truth is that the Creative One, who masterminded this exquisite universe, is the One who frees the imperfect ones with perfect love. 

Maybe you can't know that unless you've walked in it, been truly freed by it. The vacuum in the broken heart with an unfillable hole in it, is finally filled.

Look Around. It's Happening Right Now.

Last day of an extended, much-needed beach stay... I languished in the bed, dreading the end of it. Four-year-old grandson Knox wailed at breakfast "I don't want to leave!" I wailed inside. There are always those feelings, at least for me, when the "last" of anything happens. 

I remember the eve of my thirteenth birthday, being terribly distressed about growing up. I know, I know...most kids can't wait to grow up. I thought childhood was the most delightful of fairy gardens and I feared losing the wonder of it. Little did I know of the coming gift of my own children, who would bring the magic of discovery around every corner. Then came the grandchildren, like twinkles in the eye of God.

On the tail of adolescence came my senior year of high school. I could have graduated after fall quarter, but there was no way I'd miss basketball. Or track. Or all the lasts along the way. The last of  football, basketball, homecoming, prom, what-have-you. Senioritis is a bad problem for young people. It's a listless, strange season of life where you really don't know where you've been or where you are going. You're standing on the cusp of something. You're probably going to have some sort of fall but you should pray for God to help. And remember what your Mama tole ya... Some make it over, some don't. 

Thankfully that isn't generally your swan song, though tenth year class reunions might make you feel like it. 

So today, with all the lasts of this particular vacation, I tried to remember that tomorrow we will leave this pause, this brief siesta (though siesta never truly describes anything involving children).

 Life is literally like sand running through your hands. I looked at the face of my thirteen-year-old granddaughter and suddenly had the thought of her someday-wedding-day. I remember the first time I held her, like, yesterday. So those nuptials could be next week, the way things are trending. 

Tonight, the four oldest hugged and kissed us goodnight while their Mama tucked the baby into bed. These are precious days, days not to be taken for granted. There will come a time when they are impossibly busy, preoccupied with the hurry that overtakes us all. I see lots of young folks talking about intentionality, slowing down, being in the moment. Maybe that will become the new trend, and we will all figure out we better be present while we can. 

It's never good to wait until the "last" to savor what is in front of us. I have to work at not living in the past, because the past is easier, it's fuzzier, and it's often not exactly true. 

 Once again, to quote an old phrase... Carpe diem. Seize the day.