Sunset on Memory

   At the end of the day, the golden sun is setting. I've just finished washing out the paints in the laundry room...like and not unlike the thousands of times I have cleaned up paints for children over the years. I am perched on a small little ladder because it is too hard to crouch in the small corner. The hose splatters color and water all over the walls.... How many years have I cleaned up paints? Countless...only this time I clean up for the elderly people I have just painted with who have memory loss...well so much for me too. When I arrived this afternoon at 3 pm, hitting the ground running I sang a naming song going around the table, and promptly forgot everyone's name...perhaps this is me in about lets say twenty or twenty five years..moving in that vague way, with that vacant stare....stilled into some kind of vague pain by the  moments that no longer connect...
I really did hit the ground running...when I arrived, everyone was sitted around the table and I just gave out some strips of paper. and markers.... then I grabbed the canvases and said " Hang On A Minute" as I tediously squeezed out paint into palettes as people waited...However, those paints that I grabbed from the crowded cabinet form some kind of path that we followed through the jungle of forgotten memories....
(all that anxiety mattered nought.)
and then
Once the brush was picked up and the painting started, the dancing creative spirit was theirs.....and each one painted...a bird, a butterfly, a series of shapes, a flower...
     My commentary is that the independent creative spirit  carries those who pick up the brush and mix it in the paint...then the decisions about this shape and that color take over...despite glasses with one lense perched on head, despite the wandering and the uncertainty...and the shaking hand..and the memory loss....
     Holding up the butterfly and the bird we applaud the completed paintings...
     the golden sun is setting on the lavendar snow....streaks of purple in the sky...by the time I get back from washing the brushes and palettes in the laundry room the table is clean and set for supper...the sun continues to set on memory loss and I still can't recall every ones names..I guess it will take a few more name songs..
my poignant time with this new group gives me even more time to wonder where will I be in twenty years....will I be fed or guided with a walker...
I watch the sunset as supper is served.....then pack up and take my cart with me out the door.
I'll be back to sing with this group on wednesday. Since it is Elvis's birthday on friday we'll sing his songs this week....."Hound Dog"
and "Pretty Woman" and more...