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June 2021—Saratoga Springs, New York
Gil was bored with convalescence. He was still sore, it hurt to breathe, and his arm was still in a sling. He reluctantly decided to check out the senior center in town, something he didn’t think he’d do until he was much older. Surprisingly, the parking lot was full, so he found a spot on the adjacent street.
The place was alive with activity. Everyone wore COVID masks of varying types, and modern music played in the background. In a large open area, staff were setting up chairs for a presentation. At one of several round tables, a group of rambunctious ladies was making rugs. A quieter group focused on cross-stitching at another table. People walked to and fro, and Gil heard the sounds of singing and ukuleles from another room.
A middle-aged woman came up to Gil. “Hi, I’m Caroline. Do you need some help?”
Gil stopped trying to make out the words being sung. “Well, I recently retired, so I thought I’d check this place out. My name is Gil.”
“Well, Gil, you look like you had an accident!”
“Yes I did. I took a look at your website, but could someone show me around?”
“I’ll show you around. This is the main hall where we’re setting up for a speaker who’s talking about Alzheimer’s disease at eleven thirty. It’s being presented remotely, and some people will join from home instead of risking COVID exposure. You can probably tell, but a lot goes on here. We’re trying to get more men involved in meetings, but the guys tend to have hobbies that don’t lend themselves to meeting here as a group. These people over there are having a chit-chat session facilitated by an intern from Skidmore College.” To Gil, the people in the chit-chat seemed very old and needed encouragement to interact.
Caroline led Gil down a corridor. “As you can see, we have rooms for learning music, activities involving computers, and activities requiring smaller meeting rooms. Here we have a great kitchen for preparing meal events, but we haven’t been doing that much lately thanks to COVID. There is a barbecue coming up soon, now that the warm weather is here. We also prepare food for Meals on Wheels, if you’re interested in volunteer activities. Any particular interests bring you here?”
“I’m just figuring out what’s available. I was doing some outside activities, but then I got injured, so I’ve been a little bored.”
“Here’s our latest newsletter, which you can also read on our website. It costs twenty-five dollars to join the Senior Center. would you like to join?”
“Sure, why not.” Caroline brought him over to the main desk and had him fill out a form. She entered his information into a computer and processed his payment.
“There you go, Gil. You’ll get all the information you need in your email since that’s the preference you selected.”
“Thanks, Caroline. I’ll just hang around a little more and get a feel for the place.”
Gil walked over to the music class and watched them through the large hallway windows. The musicians-to-be seemed to be having fun, even though most of them weren’t playing very well. In the next room, Gil watched an art class where everyone was painting a picture of a butterfly clinging to a flower. The people in that room seemed to be deeply focused on their work. The pictures he could see were very different versions of the sample at the front of the room, but they were good all the same.
As Gil made his way back toward the front door, someone turned up the background music. “Achy Breaky Heart” was playing. The women from the rug-making and cross-stitching tables all got up and immediately arranged themselves to start line dancing. One woman was curling her finger toward Gil, trying to get him onto the dance floor. One woman from the chit-chat group was enthusiastically clapping to the music, so Gil went over and asked her to dance. She nodded, so Gil took off his sling, unlatched her wheelchair, and wheeled her onto the dancing line.
He didn’t know how to line dance, but he did his best to gyrate and move the wheelchair around with the dancers. People clapped when the dance finished. An intern came over and told Gil that Blanche would be talking about that dance for a long, long time. Blanche was thrilled.
As he drove home, Gil decided that he’d be comfortable going back to the senior center to listen to a lecture or participate in a class again, if he felt the need for interaction. His shoulder and hip were sore, though.
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The next day, Gil went to Soave Faire, the art supplies store in town. The painting supplies were way in the back, and a guy back there was stocking shelves. “Excuse me, I wonder if I can get some help with painting supplies. I would like to try my hand at painting.”
The guy looked at Gil’s sling and said, “Well, I hope you're not using that hand. Do you want watercolors, oils, or acrylics?”
“Not watercolors. What’s the difference between oils and acrylics?”
“Acrylics are easier for a beginner, and a lot of the pros prefer them.”
“Okay, acrylics.”
The guy gathered a set of paints, brushes, canvases, an easel, and other accessories, then brought them to the checkout counter. “I recommend two things to start: find a YouTube instructor you like, and paint from a photo, not from real life.”
When Gil got home, he spread out his art supplies on the dining room table. He grabbed a pomegranate seltzer and started sampling YouTube’s painting-instruction videos for acrylics. There were a lot of them. In some, the instructor didn’t explain things sufficiently; in others, the instructor’s voice or mannerisms annoyed him. A lot of them had no voice at all, just background mood music. Mostly, the instructor had you paint a specific picture along with them.
Gil chose an instructor with a pleasant voice who would paint some flowers while explaining the process. Gil set up his easel in his basement workshop. The instructor only needed ten minutes to paint, but Gil needed an hour and a half. In the end, Gil’s painting had a few flaws, but it actually came out pretty good, including the one flower that looked a bit like a titmouse. He felt relaxed rather than stressed during the process, which was a key test for this activity. He learned a lot, and he decided to try a few more instructor videos before painting on his own. Then he had a better idea.
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Gil eased his car into the parking garage across from the library. He walked over to Henry Street and found the Saratoga Paint and Sip Studio. The instructor looked like a college girl. She handed Gil an apron and welcomed him to get a drink from the bar. He hesitated, but then decided to get himself a glass of merlot. He found a seat among a dozen women and schoolgirls. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel embarrassed that he was the only guy.
Once everybody was settled, the instructor said, “Hi, I’m Charlie. Welcome to our Paint and Sip session. Please remember, it’s sip, not gulp.” People snickered. “This evening we’re going to be painting this picture.” The picture was a stylized tree surrounded by flowers and with an owl in it. It seemed like a Van Gogh–style painting to Gil, from what little he knew about art. “Everything you need is at your table. Your goal should be to paint your version of this picture, rather than a duplicate. I’ll paint my version of it so you can follow the steps that I take. Before you start, please write your first names on your name cards.
“The canvases are already primed with gesso, so you don’t have to bother with that step.” She started by mixing some colors and painting a rolling landscape, followed by the sky. Gil painted along with the rest of the people. Everyone was focused and fairly quiet. Charlie then painted the big dark tree with curly branches. As the students attempted the tree, the rate of sipping and the noise level both picked up as people realized how different theirs looked from the original.
Charlie walked around the room, giving people hints to help them. Gil was diligent in estimating the size of each branch by visualizing the branches as wire bundles in a robotic mechanism. When the tree was done, they put the outline of the big owl on a branch. Then came the highlights and details. The older woman next to Gil told him she was Lynne and asked him his name. Gil told her his name and the child next to her elbowed her in the ribs and said, “Stop flirting, Gramma. Jeez!”
By the time they were putting on the final details, the group was at its most boisterous. Gil didn’t notice the people having fun all around him; he was too focused on his painting. The acrylic paint dried fast, so when they were done, Charlie asked everyone to turn their paintings around for everyone to see. Gil thought most of them were very good, but a few were pretty horrible. Again, all different versions of the original, and the children seemed to make larger owls with more cartoon-like features.
“Gil, would you please bring your painting up here.” Gil brought it up and handed it to Charlie. She placed it next to the original, and the others gave a collective ooh. She said, “Your picture is almost exactly like the original! Have you ever considered a career as an art forger?” A collective laugh rolled through the room.