Day 249

Doctor says neither of my issues is fixable. Okay, I can do just fine anyway. The short breath is about a semi-permeable membrane that doesn’t let the oxygen into blood. The collapse was from a micro-vascular event. Low dose aspirin and 12 to 18 months will help. Today is Halloween and my pet peeve is people who call it holloween. I give up. Once a year I get picky. Tea and stories later today. It’s Karen’s birthday. Maybe I’ll provide a cake for us.

I was not ready to retire. My teaching life ended with an injury and I was terminated as the district had no legal obligation to find me a place where I could work safely. After a few months of isolation, rejection, depression and physical pain, I woke up to the fact that the rest of my life was open to choices. My curiosity saved my sanity. I started looking around for new activities and new people. I was attracted to a poster from Lighthouse Arts for a childrens’ art class and called the gallery. I asked if the class was open  and would the instructor be  willing to take and old kid with no arts skills. At first the instructor, Doris Dalbec, was hesitant. She was a stranger to me and I to her. I assured her that my art skills would match her students and that I wanted to explore art. She agreed to try it and I showed up with the six and seven year olds. It took the other students a while to not consider me an adult but when I worked with them, they got it. Doris did too and off we went for our lessons. She offered a different  media each week so I was exposed to charcoal, pastels, acrylics. water color, collage, etc. I enjoyed every minute and decided that thanks to Doris taking a chance with me I would go on to take lessons with adults. I became a volunteer at the gallery and was a board member for a time. Later I took another art class at CR with Virginia Brubaker and was the oldest member of the class again but the difference wasn’t as obvious. I am grateful for a stranger who was kind and included me against her first impulse.