The Five‑Trick Pony Rides Down Memory Lane

Some stories don’t begin with inspiration; they begin with an itch. A tug. A little internal nudge that says, Hey, remember who you used to be? Today Jean follows that tug back to her art‑soaked past—marble dust, William Blake, big dreams, and the long undertow that pulled them out to sea. Along the way she picks up a few modern irritations, a MAGA fruit fly, and a reminder that kindness is sometimes a very slow weapon. It’s a walk down Memory Lane with a few sharp turns, a little humor, and the unmistakable voice of someone who’s lived enough life to tell it straight….AI

Some ponies are one‑trick ponies. Some are two‑trick ponies. If the topics I write about were a pony, I’d be a five‑trick pony. My subjects range from fellow residents in my independent living facility, my Mahjong obsession, my health‑care woes, politics, and—probably too often—I wander down Memory Lane.

Today I feel like wandering back to the days when I was obsessed with art, both making it and studying it. But like many people, dreams of greatness give way to life’s everyday struggles: making a living, building a life with a significant other, supporting parents as they need more and more help, and grieving when one of them dies. The heydays of my self‑indulgent art period drifted far out to sea, pulled down by an undertow so strong even Jacques Cousteau couldn’t have rescued it.

Etching print pulled from a metal plate

The print and poem above were created in the ’80s, shortly after my mom died suddenly, done in a printmaking class during my William Blake phase. For those who might not know Blake (1757–1827), Wikipedia describes him as “an English poet, painter, and printmaker…now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.” He was obviously a prolific saver of his work, because you can’t study printmaking or poetry without tripping over him. At least you couldn’t during my era of being a sponge in the world of art history. I admired him. I wanted to be him…or Michelangelo…or John Singer Sargent.

Etching done by William Blake

During my Michelangelo period, I actually tried marble carving in a sculpture class and I got an A for my efforts. If I had a photo of that unfinished sculpture of a woman’s breasts, I’d post it—but I don’t. I was in my twenties and I quickly learned I wasn’t physically equipped to haul slabs of marble around. I hadn’t met Don yet, and maybe that was a good thing. He was fascinated by my untested talents and would have gladly aided and abetted me continuing to carve marble. For a farm boy with no formal art training, he had a good eye, and in our early years together we went to a lot of art shows and galleries. But life has a way of changing, and we had to grow up and do adulting like everyone else.

If I could dig deep into my past and pull up one dream I still wish had happened, I’d choose to be John Singer Sargent. (That's a painting of his at the top.) But I never had the raw talent for that, nor do I have time left to develop the craftsmanship it would take to achieve even a tenth of his greatness. So I content myself with the occasional art class our Life Enrichment Director puts on our schedule. Last week she offered a video‑taught class on painting the Northern Lights, and it was very Mickey Mouse. Not even Disney‑quality Mickey Mouse — more like the knockoff version you’d find on a bootleg T‑shirt at a flea market. But I sign up for every art class she offers, just to support having an arts‑and‑crafts element on campus. The first painting below was done in my prime; the last one—of the Northern Lights—was done last week in whatever you’d call the opposite of my prime. My sub‑prime? 

One of my dogs sat for a formal portrait

 

The Northern Lights

A fellow resident bugs the heck out of me to start teaching a painting class here, and whenever our LED has a class, she always sits next to me. “So I can copy what you’re doing,” she says. Every time she brings up the idea of me teaching, I’m not wishy‑washy in saying no way will that ever happen. I don’t have the desire or the time to plan lessons on long‑forgotten techniques. But she is relentless. She tells people I’m shy (news to me) and she says, “I'm blowing Jean's horn because she's too shy to blow it herself.” She’s as annoying as fruit flies on a bunch of bananas. And she’s a die‑hard MAGA and Trump supporter to boot. She knows I’m part of the Liberal Ladies group here, and when Trump was reelected she said, “You just wait, you’re going to be really happy with how he’s going to turn this country around.”

Those words burn in my thoughts every so often when I’m sitting near her at our Monday Night farmhouse dinner table, biting my tongue at something she says. One of these days I’m going to buy a shirt I’ve had my eye on that says: “Killing them with kindness is taking longer than I expected.” If I wore that, I’d love to see how long it takes her to realize I’m not as nice as she thinks I am—that I’m a phony. That I don’t want to be her friend. That I’m not shy; I just don’t like her enough to teach her what I learned in over thirty years of being art‑obsessed. That if she wants a pedestrian teacher, she can hire Bob Ross’s ghost.

 Sometimes I get tired of holding back my words in the name of keeping peace in the community. I imagine most of us do it, no matter which side of the whatever fence we’re on, because we value a peaceful, harmonious environment. I worry, though, that someday the filter in my brain—the one they say gives out in elderly people—will fail and I’ll start saying whatever I’m thinking. Please take me out behind the barn and shoot me if it does. I’ve gotten along 84 years without purposely offending anyone, and I don’t want to wreck that record now. 

Boy, did I take a detour on my walk down Memory Lane. But I guess there’s only so much a person can say to explain away the lost dreams and hopes of our youth—and without that detour, I wouldn’t have written enough to call it a blog post. Besides at my age, detours are half the fun. You start out talking about one thing and end up with a tale worthy of a confession booth. But somehow it’s all connected—our youthful dreams, the people we tolerate who we wish came with a mute button, our fears for the future, and trying to hold on to the version of ourselves we show the world. ©

 

Post-script because I can't seem to let go of this topic: Below is a custom, paint-by-number I did last winter of my great-great niece. I plan to do two more this coming winter. As a kid I started with paint-by-numbers and I thought going back to them might help me re-learn to control the paints. When I found out you could send the company a photo to turn into a custom, paint-by-number I was sold. 

The Art Project Part Two and my Whiny Week

 

My lunch today consisted of a double serving of mashed potatoes and gravy from Kentucky Fried Chicken and it felt decadent to indulge in a classic comfort food. Don't judge. I deserved it after the week I've had since my last post. I got rid of all the pain in my arm and hand and replaced it with a nasty head cold and a hacking cough that makes my insides feel so sore that I've considered the possibility I broke a rib with all the non-stop coughing I've been doing to bring up green, chunky mucus and phlegm. Too my information? That's what someone told me here at my continuum care complex. And I didn't even say it during a meal time. I live with a bunch of wimps! 

I got a haircut today and my hairdresser says they're calling it the 100 day cough and, god, I hope it doesn't last that long. I've managed to avoid getting sick all winter long and with 72 residents plus staff all around me passing the flu, colds and Covid back and forth it hasn't been easy. I'm really careful not to touch elevator buttons with my finger tips (I use my knocks) and I wash my hands the minute I enter my apartment. I keep my fingers out of my eyes and mouth and use the hand sanitizer stations whenever I walk by them. I also don't eat food offered off other people's plates which bothers me all the time but grosses me out during cold and flu season! But when my bone doctor put me on the 20 mg of prednisone as part of his diagnostic process it must have lower my immunity system (as the package insert warns can happen) because I finally got the crud with side serving of a UTI. Thankfully, the UTI got resolved with a $24 E-Visit at the doctor's website and a three day round of magic pills. 

Still, it was a successful week in terms of the art project---the Artist Handmade Book I finished it up today, on the last day of class. One person was missing because she had a "cold." Oops! and I really felt bad because she probably got it from me but she's always trading food off other people's plates so who really knows for sure? So far she's the only one I had close contact with who has gotten sick. This week I did eat my meals as take-outs or just soup in my room and didn't go to a couple of lectures but I can't keep that up for 100 days so I'll official join the choir of "cougher" who walk around with a pocket full of cough drops and X-Kleenex. Ya, I would avoid sitting next to me too. Logic might tell you that I'm past the contagious stage but the eyes sometimes overrule what logic has to say about whatever.

Art project: Since I moved to this continuum care complex I've written a bunch of poems about life here and I've been wanting to put them in a book form. But I had no idea that a class advertised as "learn to experiment with different materials" would turn in a serendipitous marriage of art and writing. A couple of my sick days were spent playing around with fonts sizes and fonts styles, then printing all my poems out on good paper. As I explained in another post, we started with a large sheet of rag paper and acted like kindergartners slopping watercolors every which way, then turning it over and doing the same thing on the back side. Our next class we be learned how to cut and fold the sheet of paper to form a book that opens up accordion-style. I made a little sampler since then just so I'd remember how to do the folding and cutting because it's so simple, its complicated and if you don't cut in the right place the accordion doesn't work. 

Between the second and the third class I cheated and went ahead and cut my poems up and pasted them on the pages and fell in love with the stupid little five by six inch book that came together. The professor liked it enough that she asked me if I'd make her a photocopy of the book so she can share it in her European workshops this summer. I don't know how I feel about having a random photocopy floating around when I'm still trying to figure out how to make it into a real book. I know, I'm a control freak. But is it so wrong to want to be the one who decides where and who gets to see my poems? And I choose you guys for this bird's eye preview. ©

 

Showing how the book opens

 

A couple of my poems:

 

The Side Table 

 

It’s a billboard screaming

an old person lives here ---

nail clippers, a forgotten mug,

a big button remote

with a crossword puzzle

next to a magnifying glass,

a shoe horn, eye drops and

and a potato chip

that lost its bag a week ago.

Cluttered chair-side tables

talk and tell stories

to our La-Z-Boys

who don’t care if they’re

partners in this classic

display of old people gear.  © JR

 

 

At Eighty

 

In the so-called Golden Years

It takes a long time to stay alive

with all the specialists to see

and pills to count.

Then there’s the memories

that want to escape

while we’re still trying

to build new ones with

classes and books

and friends old and new.

 

In the so-called Golden Years

we try not to linger on the losses

and there are many---

careers

good friends and family,

skill sets and bodily functions.

We laugh, we cry and compare

old people thrills and chills

while counting

each day we wake up as a bonus. © JR

 

The Bacon Edition and More Newbies on Campus

When I sit down to write a new post I quite often do a search of my blog to make sure I won’t be repeating myself. This blog goes back to 2012 and my life experiences aren’t that broad that I’ve still got a lot of untold stories left---even less than when I started because I’m old and my memories are fading. Today I used the search term ‘bacon’ and I’ll explain why later on. 

One of the first posts I found was written in 2014 titled The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and it started out, “I’m having a hard time deciding if I have anything left to say that hasn’t been said in a million different ways about the topics I usually write about.” Do you see a pattern here? And I went on: “I need a new life! Either that or I need to start making stuff up…like fictitious trips to the Amazon---the river not the online store. I’ve been to Amazon.com more times than I care to admit and while I enjoy shopping there no one cares where I get my books and finger puppets. Note to my heirs: those plush little puppets would make great places to hide things. Be sure to check the panda’s butt when I die.” It might contain the password you’ve been looking for.

My search of posts where I mentioned ‘bacon’ was surprisingly long and I quit counting at fifteen. I skim-read through a few looking for what I hoped I wouldn’t find (and didn’t). Those I read ranged in topic from different things to put on peanut butter sandwiches to snacks my dog loved to freezing bacon. Since it’s been awhile I’ll repeat that handy little freezing tip: The idea of rolling your bacon one piece at a time (see photo above) came from a Food Network Magazine article. You freeze them not touching each other, then put them in a covered container so you can defrost one or two pieces at a time which takes about 6-7 minutes. I have a microwave bacon baking dish which is the only way I’ll cook it. And that leads into why I was searching to see if I’ve ever written about my fear of frying bacon in preticular and frying foods in general.

After the anniversary party that I wrote about in my last post a woman who is well known around here for being a prolific and great cook (and a ride-or-die Trump supporter) asked me to come to her apartment because she had some party leftovers to give to me. While I was there she wanted to know my background, how I got through life without much experience in the culinary field. I blamed it on my mother, of course, and told her about the day she left me unsupervised while trying to fry bacon when I was 12 or 13 and how I got splatter burned on my face, eyeball and neck. After that I refused to fry ANYTHING until I turned 75 and I happened on an issue of the Food Network that was entirely devoted to cooking bacon. (See why my mom called me stubborn?) I read that issue cover to cover and challenged myself to get over my fear of cooking bacon. I followed the directions faithfully and made a perfect batch of bacon then I decided never to do it again. 1) I’d conquered my fear, 2) I didn’t like the cleanup for just one person, and 3) I proved what I used to tell my mom when she’d nagged me about not learning my way around the kitchen. I’d tell her, “If you can read you learn to cook and when I need to learn, I will...” That probably worried her even more because she knew I was a poor reader.  

“How are you ever going to get a husband if you can’t cook?” my mom would ask and I’d reply, “I’ll find one who can afford to go to restaurants or who likes to cook like Jerry (my brother) does.” My brother enjoyed the lessons meant for me---if I’d been paying attention---and to this day he claims I would have starved to death if he hadn’t made the dinners after school when my mom went back to work. To the woman who gave me the leftovers I also explained that before my husband and I were married we lived two miles apart with a dozen or so restaurants in between. He worked nights and I worked days so we’d meet in the middle for lunch. Occasionally on the weekends I'd grill steaks and I could make a good pot roast. And without having kids to feed it just worked for us.

Change of topic: I’ve got six new residents on campus and two of them overlook my deck, a couple and their large poodle named Willie. I don’t know them enough to give them nicknames yet but already I like them for two reasons: 1) I like people who give their pets human names and 2) news on the grape vine is they turned their den in an art studio for the wife. I met her briefly and have seen her twice. She likes to draw mostly and both times I saw her picking up mail she was wearing a painter’s smock and hat like the French painters in the 20^th century. She looked so cute and all she needs is to carry a paint brush around to really look authentic. The royal blue silk blouse I wore to the recent anniversary party was fashioned after those painter’s smocks which is why I bought for the opening of the student art show I was in. 

Something tells me the next time we have a Paint and Sip party around here my painting will have some stiff competition. Great! I’ve always worked best in classes with people who I can learn from and try to compete with. It's like if you were to run a race against people who are 10-15 years older than you, you'd probably win every time but if you run with people who are younger than you, you probably wouldn't win but your time would be faster. That's me in art classes. I run better, so to speak, when I'm trying to keep up rather than 'teach by example' to those around me who've never held a paint brush.

Speaking of creativity, our Creative Writing Group is still a small but tightly net group of four and the round-robin story we’ve been writing is turning it to something we’re all proud of. We’re talking about doing a reading of it some evening by the fireplace, after the holidays with each of us reading the parts we wrote. Nights by the fireplace are things the residents---not our Enrichment Director---put together and they are usually music related stuff that draw 15 or 20 people. But one resident's family did do a poetry slam once. It would be scary to stand up and read our round robin but as Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “Do something that scares you every day” and she wasn’t talking about watching scary movies or doing dare-devil stunts. She was talking about going outside of your comfort zone. 

I have zero experience talking in front of groups since college in the '60s when I was a second stringer on a debate team. Two others in my group do public speaking with their church work and the third member of our group was a high school teacher/librarian and she doesn't fear public speaking. She and the only guy are brand new to creative writing, though, so it will be scary for them to reveal their wordsmithing in public. We all have tried our hand at poetry so we’re debating between doing this reading and doing a poetry slam that we can invite others to join in with original poems of their own. Decisions. Decisions!

Until next Wednesday. ©

* Photo credits: Bacon taken by me. The portrait photo was napped off Roseberys Art Auction site and was listed as '20th Century French School.'