60 to Life

I continue to struggle with having to place my dad in a nursing home and more so with his ever-increasing dementia. Painting seems to be an avenue to help me with my attempts to make make sense of it all. As I said, attempts!


Within each of us, there exists a personal cell ... perhaps, a personal hell. Cell or hell, it is there that we retreat ... it is there that we make our last stand. We enter via a long and circuitous path ... traversed at a slow meander ... or in a single step. We carry our cells with us at all times ... to be ready in an instant. Once inside, all that we are, or ever have been, gone.Loved ones search for us in vain. Their efforts yield no more than worn, battered shells, familiar only in their appearances. But, we are gone!

An instant ... a recognized name ... a fleeing peek through the bars ... maybe ... but, we are gone!

NEXT

We recently placed my dad in a nursing home. I wanted to paint something for him for his room. He will not know what it is. He may not understand that I painted it or who I am. I am not sure this is for him or about him.


A rough visualization of the painting has been swirling around in my head for about a week now and it has been a difficult week. I sketched out the basic composition and tried out numerous meanings. It was the meaning that escaped me, but it was meaning that I wanted. It was imperative that I frame the picture with reality.

Reality happens fast. One moment it is nowhere to be seen and the next, it stares you in the face. I think we are eye-to-eye now. I understood and knew that dad was losing it. I did not want to see that. It was standing there in the open field for all to see. I looked away. I did not want dad to go into the nursing home. I did not want to see that. The need was there, right on the mantel, for all to see. I looked away. Now, we are eye-to-eye. He is in the nursing home. It is ok. It is supposed to be.

I was determined to finish this painting. I roughed it out, but was not really happy with it. I sketched in the essential figures and laid in the basic color patterns that I had envisioned. But, reality is never that clear. I realized that I needed to mix the colors and to cloud the images. I clouded them to make them real. I realized that I needed to add meaning. I was not sure if I had the skill to add that to the canvas. I was not even sure that I had the skill to add that in my mind’s eye. I reversed the peephole. I wanted to look inside. I wanted you to look with me.

We must look into the abyss. What I see is my dad’s reality. But, it is also my future. Maybe the fear is for me … maybe for the rest of us as well. Hope is that we too will not understand. We too ...all of us ... will don the polka dot gown. We will slide the dunce’s hats on our heads and they will fit nicely. We too will ... without exception ...step in line and everyone will know we should be there and will hope, as I have for my dad, that we don’t know too much.

One day, we will step forward … and we will be NEXT.