What I love so much about this class is how we get to learn through the art of storytelling. As someone that loves poetry and writing, it is especially meaningful to get to talk to elders in different living environments and hear about all of their amazingly fruitful and rich lives and co-create meaningful work from it. During our combined class outing, we went to see the SRO at Sara Francis, visit the Potiker Senior Housing units, the Talmadge permanent supportive housing apartments, and the LGBTQ senior living units. What stood out to me the most was our final stop and getting to eat lunch and converse with the elders there.
I got the opportunity to talk to some really interesting Queer elders like John. During the lockdown period of this ongoing pandemic, he showed us a framed photo of a collection of over 50 paintings he did on baseball cards he collected over the years. It was such a cool form of creating something new out of something old. He was able to really tap into his artistry and his painting skills with some guided prompts from an intergenerational artist collective he is a part of. Each week they would send out either a prompt or a letter or some phrase to formulate his work around to garner inspiration while setting a guide for artistic direction. Hearing his life story of traveling around the world being in the military to landing in San Diego and working on his art now was inspiring.
It's a reminder that while life is "short" we can also shift into the perspective that life can be long too. Life can be long in the sense that we don't always need to worry when we're young about how our lives are going to pan out right here and now. We can focus on the actual 'here' and 'now' by being present, enjoying what life is to us in this current time, and use each day to build upon what it is that we truly want, follow our purpose and create the life we hope to be living in our inevitable old age. Getting to develop connections to older adults is so special because it is a living reminder that we can find happiness and joy in the present and focus our attention to what actually matters to us, and not what our capitalist society or social constructs tell us that we need to focus on.
I got the opportunity to talk to some really interesting Queer elders like John. During the lockdown period of this ongoing pandemic, he showed us a framed photo of a collection of over 50 paintings he did on baseball cards he collected over the years. It was such a cool form of creating something new out of something old. He was able to really tap into his artistry and his painting skills with some guided prompts from an intergenerational artist collective he is a part of. Each week they would send out either a prompt or a letter or some phrase to formulate his work around to garner inspiration while setting a guide for artistic direction. Hearing his life story of traveling around the world being in the military to landing in San Diego and working on his art now was inspiring.
It's a reminder that while life is "short" we can also shift into the perspective that life can be long too. Life can be long in the sense that we don't always need to worry when we're young about how our lives are going to pan out right here and now. We can focus on the actual 'here' and 'now' by being present, enjoying what life is to us in this current time, and use each day to build upon what it is that we truly want, follow our purpose and create the life we hope to be living in our inevitable old age. Getting to develop connections to older adults is so special because it is a living reminder that we can find happiness and joy in the present and focus our attention to what actually matters to us, and not what our capitalist society or social constructs tell us that we need to focus on.