Middle-aged Van Goghs

Okay now I am almost there.. nearing 50, almost touching it. I am officially going to that age,  the age that even as a 40 year old, I thought was old. 

With a lot of free time on my hands, what with having finished with birthing and raising kids, who are now adults and on their way to finding their pearls and a husband who is  firmly in the grips of the  corporate rungs, I was casting my net around for ways to occupy myself gainfully. I mean, how many movies can you watch, lunches you can munch, clothes you can buy and on line games you can play. At one time or the other, you want to do something to "discover yourself" and "realise your potential".

As a kid growing up I had dabbled in art and painting so I set forth and found an art class close to home. I started imagining large canvases with intricately painted pictures in vibrant colours hung all over my house and gifting to friends and all going "Ahhhh".

I spoke to the lady (whom I researched and found was the genuine thing, meaning, had an Art diploma and was a professional painter) and armed with all the paraphernalia that she had asked for, I landed up at her class.

Now I had expected a class full of these young, artistic types, painting away at their easels with aprons on and palette in hand. What I found was a room with two easels and four tables, each with an "auntie" behind it. What I mean by Auntie is a middle-aged, graying lady with crow's feet and cellulite.

I found the class full of me, women like me..time on their hands and out to discover themselves. I was not a novelty, I was the rule. It seems that most women with busy husbands and busier kids join such "hobby" classes at a certain age. They start learning crochet, needle work, bridge, painting or whatever they dreamed of doing, had they a little time to call their own. They join book clubs, join community service, learn a language, attempt a sport, twang at a guitar, sweat at a gym or write a cook book. They may not do it well, but they do it.

It gives an immense sense of gratification to have filled in some hours of the day with an activity that doesn't seem superfluous or supercilious. It lends a sense of self-worth and well being.

I have been busy trying to copy Starry Starry Night. And loving every minute of it.