another painting class at the adult daycare. usually we've had 4-8 people in the class, this time at least 15. it was a very energetic time. perhaps 1/3 are really anxious to paint, another third is mildly interested (or bored with other activities) and the rest are pretty much pushed to join us. man, you just want to see them get interested. my father reached a point where he was interested in very little, or couldn't sustain interest. getting stuff from the supply room, I found a man sitting there alone. sometimes people choose to go in there to work on arts and crafts by themselves but he was just sitting there. a tape of The Honeymooners was put on in the big room, so I engaged himn a little about that, memories of watching the show on saturday nights when I was very little. he brightened up, agreed, but didn't go into the other room. two women have been in all our clases. they used to be close, but one is growing generally distant and depressed. the other is a lively woman, very enthusiastic and supportive. she used to have a lot of trouble starting anything, would feel incapable of doing anything. she now starts in pretty quickly. her husband has goten her paints, and frames her work. obviously he realizes the value of the engagement. the other regular has grown distant, as I've said. still taken by painting, at which she's quite adept. she did a gloomy black smudge for her 1st painting, then several nice flower pictures. then she starts worrying about going home. an incredibly gleeful woman with Down's syndrome had a ball painting. she did a couple of scenes with house and dog and trees, her own world. she's deaf, and hard to understand but it was lovely to see her so happy and involved. at the same table was a crabby woman who had nothing nice to say about anyone. she thought she'd seen me around town, and seemed disparaging when I said I lived up north. also at that table was a depressed woman who couldn't get into gear. she showed me her ring, which she said was her mother's. then she said that her mother died last night, and so did her father. which I doubt, but the deaths clearly were close by. the other one at that table did an absolutely lovely scene of a tree. the tree was black with green foliage, the sky blue, the ground green. she had the good taste to leave a white horizontal band: she didn't overpaint it. I would frame the picture, it had that much presence, the sensation of somewhere that she knew. one other woman painted an apple tree with fruit on the ground, then what at 1st seemed a separate picture, a garden of what I took to be tulips. I thought she had a diptich going, but she brought the two images together with a green field. she said she woke with that image. previously she did a picture of 2 people on a bench looking out at a lake and beyond that a mountain. she dreamed that image. others were less successful. I tell them to choose the colour they like best. and they do, but need to be pushed, and even so will give up. one fellow, a regular, routinely and happily does horizonal lines. this time he did black swirling lines and then he did boxes and other shapes. another man does these small designs with dots, fastidious. he continually says he doesn't know what to do but he keeps at it. others didn't engage a whole lot. one woman was doubtful of her ability but willing to try. a sudden sea change, tho, and she not only struggled to put paint on paper, she announced that it was all bullshit. as we were leaving I found her rummaging the closet for her coat. which, she said, had been stolen. I told a person that the woman needed her coat. the person replied, no she doesn't, it's not time to go. but the woman was anxious and distressed and wanted to go home. I saw that enough with my father, which was especially bad since he was home, and where he wanted to go was 60 years ago. I took up painting 4 years ago what image to I do most? trees. a lot of these people do trees. something to connect with. even the crabby woman, and other distraught ones, thank us when we leave.