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?