Watercolor Is Hard

My Watercolor Painting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Watercolor is a difficult artistic medium. My friend who tries so hard to teach me the finer points of painting with watercolor is fighting a losing battle. I am not now, nor have I ever had artistic inspiration. I love to view good painting; I even love to understand the finer points of it's creation, but I'm not able to create it.

The fluid lines my friend creates with the sweep of a brush become blobs in my hand. I had a problem with leaving the glaze alone to let it flow and develop on it's own. She assures me this is where you let the water do the work. Under her brush it develops interesting designs as it dries. Under mine, it just dries.

I'll stick to writing, sometimes poetry, but always with words and metaphors, never with brushes and paints. I do go to the class and learn something, but I have no illusions about my creations. They are mostly a study in what not to do. My friend is dedicated and helpful, and I can't let her work so hard without trying to reward her for her efforts. No, I'll never be a painter, but don't tell her I said so. She deserves to see my  best effort even though I know it useless. I love her for her optimism. She thinks she can find the artist in there somewhere and coax her to come out.

A Bad Week

A week ago today a friend died. I found it a little traumatic although I've only know her since I moved to "the home." She had lived here for quite a while and seemed better adjusted to the situation and the limitations than me. I'll miss her. She knew who everybody was and could help me know who got along with whom and where everyone was from and what they did before they moved here. I'm coming up on my first year anniversary, so I ought to be able to manage from here, but even with a year under my belt, I'll miss Judy laugh and her joy and her philosophy. 

Another friend had an accident and broke his leg. Fred is not a friend I talk to a lot because he cannot hear. Sometimes I write notes to him which relieves the tension of trying to make him hear. I often sit with him in silence because I don't want to embarrass him or frustrate him. He was a physicist and taught at Pan Am University. I would love to get him to expound on physics and hear his take on Hawking and Dark Matter. 

Tomorrow I will try to go to the hospital and sit with him for a while and let his daughter get a break. Today at the memorial for Judi I read some poetry. It helped me find meaning in the loss of my friend. I hope I find meaning in Fred's difficulty too. Maybe it will help relieve my guilt at feeling so helpless in the face of his need. 
                  

The Study of Adult Development

Marcus Tullius Cicero, after whom Teuffel named his Ciceronian period of the Golden Age. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An acquaintance here at "the home" has tried to establish a book review club and invited me to participate. I agreed to give a book review in August. I thought that would give me time to prepare if I couldn't get out of it. The other side of that is it will give me the opportunity to talk about something that has been enlightening to me. I love the study of Adult Development--a relatively new area in the field of psychology. Child Development has been around for a hundred years or so, but nobody took a look at how adults develop beyond maturity at around 20 until almost the middle of the 20th century.

There have been a few people who commented on aging and developmental concepts like Cicero's De Senectute  and the Bible in various places,  but it wasn't backed up by any data or scientific records until the results of the Grant Study published in 1977 in George Vaillant's book Adaptation to Life.  One well-known book based on the study was Passages by Gail Sheehy, but her book was sort of pirated from the study. The Grant Study participants were exclusively male sophomore students at Harvard University. The author applied results to women, however, at the time the study was conducted, women were not questioned, interviewed, or followed.  


When the study was conducted, women were not big participants in the workplace. Their lives were not comparable to the men in the study. Daniel Levinson did write a developmental study of women's lives called Season's of a Woman's Life after he wrote Season's of a Man's Life. He dealt with some of the differences in the lives of men and women. It seemed that Sheehy applied the results of the Grant Study to women without the integrity of using women as a base of investigation.

The results are becoming more universally accepted as education and employment have become more equally accessed by men and women. I found the study of Adult Development fascinating. It has provided me with anticipation as I age. There are still summits to climb and battles to fight. Getting old has been saddled with a bad rap. Lets don't give up till it over. 

Swimming for Exercise, Not Boiling

Kaya focusing on the ceiling as she warms up with the backstroke. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I did something dumb again. I've done it before, and I would have thought I would learn the lesson and not repeat it. But I didn't. I went to the pool and swam, and played, and talked for about an hour and a half. I got blistered. I don't think it's really bad, but my shoulders are definitely red and tender. My face looks flushed and I dread wearing real clothes. That's the reason I'm still lazing around in my sleep shirt today. I can avoid the outside world for a while and my skin will return to something that wont be shocking to people.

I'll try not to do it again. If I go swimming early in the morning maybe I can really take advantage of the pool and not get the heavy-duty rays that turn me into a boiled lobster. I want to get my swimming back to something that can legitimately be called exercise. The pool here is large. I'm hoping that five laps three times a week will help me strengthen my upper body muscles and give me more endurance. I'm really tired of hurting all the time and feeling like a slob.

I want to improve my back stroke, my side stroke, my skull, and my frog kick. I was never good at the breast stoke anyway. It sounds like the good, strong strokes would strengthen my upper body and reduce my chronic weariness. Please say it so!

Writing a Personal Essay

Author: notafish - Delphine Ménard Source: self drawn. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

            


Writing an essay is harder that it sounds. When I was in school the teacher gave requirements and rules about style and language. Now I’ve come to a place where I want to write a personal essay and there aren’t any rules. 

I write some blogs and the subject of the blog determines the subject and style. Now I want to write an opinion, but I’m not sure what the subject is. Maybe it’s just things I want to say. 

There is advice I want to give my grandchildren, wisdom I would like to impart to friends, council I want to share with strangers—all kinds of stuff I just think people ought to be aware of. It is a little scary to think I am the authority on a wide variety of issues these people ought to following. The responsibility is awesome. But it would make my life easier if I didn’t have to suffer the futility of dealing with those who don’t know how to get along. 

A few of them think they know how things ought to be done. Of course, they are misguided. I try to have pity rather than scorn for them, but sometimes it’s hard. I know several people who think they are smarter than the rest of us  and are ready to snap everyone into shape for the project they have designed. 

I have a friend who I like a lot, but she is an artist  and thinks she can make an artist out of me. I sincerely doubt that will happen. I enjoy the interaction, but I’ll never be an artist. I don’t do well in crafts either, no matter how simple. I just don’t enjoy it. I won’t sacrifice the time. 

Now that I think about it, I guess everybody I know in “the home” has the same conviction: Their system would simply their life too. If we would all behave as they demand, life would be simpler, at least for them. 

Memorial Day

A United States poster advertising World War I Liberty Bonds (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today I am forced to remember people who have touched me with their service in the Armed Forces. My father served in the First World War. He rarely mentioned it, but it gave me a sense of pride even when I had no memory of that event. My parents had friends who were serving in the Second World War. Then, my mother was active in the Red Cross and my father sold War Bonds. I remember the ration stamps Mama had to use for buying some items, like sugar and the meatless Tuesdays. Now I have a more personal connection to the military. Two of my children and several of my grandchildren have served.  Military service in defense of my country is a personal matter when it involves family members.

I don't always agree with government actions and political slogans, but I find it hard to blame the men and women who serve with these ulterior motives. They have a different perspective on war and service than those of us who lurk back here behind the lines. Being in the line of fire changes the truths you look at and the potential for personal sacrifice.  

Today I'll think more about the people who have committed their time and lives in service to our nation and less about the speakers and the flag waving, more about the country's support of the military and less about the support of Congress or the President. The current scandal over Veterans getting health care is an on-going problem. I question so many aspects of health care already; adding the regard for veterans to the already insurmountable mess the health care industry is already in leaves me thinking we need to view this as some different battle and take it out of the government control. It was a huge mistake to surrender health care to government in the first place. What else is at risk with government take-over?  

What Are You Reading?

Deutsch: Viktor Frankl (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. Deutsch: Winston Churchill, 1940 bis 1945 sowie 1951 bis 1955 Premier des Vereinigten Königreichs und Literaturnobelpreisträger des Jahres 1953. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

George Vaillant

Cover of C.S. Lewis

An acquaintance asked me to give a book review. I agreed to do it, but then I got cold feet. The books I read are often not the ordinary kind of thing most people want to hear about. I  recently read Viktor E. Frankl Man's Search for Meaning. I work on George Vaillant's Aging Well repeatedly. George Vaillant has a new book out entitled Triumphs of Experience, but I think it will be similar to his previous studies of stage development. I'm guessing every audience will think I am both slow and boring.

I am also working on C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet, and
Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm. I shouldn't have agreed to give a book review. I'm pretty sure nobody will want to hear what I read.

The works by Frankl, Churchill and Lewis are certainly not new material. Mostly they were published in the 40's and 50's. It really dates me. But somehow in this kind of company I don't mind. Vaillant is current. His new book was published in the last year, but it's about getting old, at least about the new research on getting old.

If I don't back out, I'll probably do the Vaillant book. Every since I first studied Adult Development for my degree, I have been fascinated by the subject. It's wonderful to know that as long as you live there are still stages to achieve and wonders to comprehend. I have no doubt that Frankl, Churchill, and Lewis never stopped growing and learning, but Vaillant describes it and illuminates the process so that you never have to be bored with life, even when you have retired or you abandon a career. It ain't over till it's over,  folks.