Saving the Best to Last

Late Night Pizza

Two evening shows featuring songs from Broadway and two standing ovations later we were having four cheese pizza, salad or cookies in the Ocean View Cafe. Now that is cruising.

... packing is exhausting work ...

I was up again ... early, walking the halls, getting another couple of decks of cards for bridge, coming back to the room to alert Wyona that there was another watercolour class.

I have pretty well given up – another talent that I am going to pass on ... develop those art skills when I get to heaven, I thought to myself. I am working on being polite.

... three point landing ...
a cruising talent

That is all. Like, instead of turning the lights on in the room when I come back from my walk, I go into a pitch black room and try to find the bathroom door by Braille. This is not easy. I could find an open door but I was blocked by wood from entering the room. I went back to the wall, ran my hand over it, trying to find a knob. No door handle anywhere. By now I was using large circling motions with both of my arms. I have been doing Zumba. They are flexible. Still no way to get into the bathroom so I am patting down every wall. I have forgotten that this room has a closet where Wyona and Greg keep their folded stuff. This is what I have been trying to enter in the dark. Cruising is hard work.

We are doing the inside passage today -- seeing for ourselves that the beauty we already know is British Columbia extends along this whole coast. We are out of the Alaska Panhandle and in the waters that separate Vancouver Island from the mainland. So beautiful.

But back to the morning – since Wyona wouldn’t get up and go to the art lesson, I went to check it out and one of those wonderful things happen where the student and the master connect. I might like painting after all. The pedagogy was just right for me: this is about having fun; take 30 minutes, do what you can and be out of there; use the same palette over and over (just let the paints dry and wet them down when you begin again). Now I have a new kit of paper, brushes and colours and tons of tips. ie there is a watermark on the paper, usually lower right hand side that will let you know which is the right side of the paper. During the lesson the teacher diverged a bit to answer a question and then said, “I don’t know where I was in the lesson, so I don’t know where to start again.”

... one more peak at the water ...

“You were explaining the difference between negative a positive space.”

Whoops.

That voice was mine.

I must have been taking notes in my mind and not evening knowing it.

 I would have broken out my paints and got busy, if I hadn’t been racing off to zumba.

... a last night ... at least for a while ...

Everyone else is on the stage.

I stay at the back of the auditorium with the shy people, in the shadows, following the leader from far away.

I am not ready to be in the spotlight to do the cumbia until have it mastered in the dark.

Arta