Beech Tree News Network

Basically, I’m a stick in the mud.  I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything.  I want to stay right here in my house on my farm, where I can read, write and watch Britbox TV.  Occasionally, Garey will ask, “Do you want to go out and eat tonight?"  To which I quickly reply, “I will cook a five-course meal plus dessert, if it means I don’t have to leave this house.”

Recently, however, I’ve been thinking that I need to mend my ways.  “You need to get out and socialize or you’re going to forget how,” I say to my stick-in-the-mud self.  In obedience to that directive, I signed up for a basket class, through the local arts guild, which was being taught at the library.  The teachers, Beth and Scott of GH Productions, from Scottsville, were wonderfully kind and patient.  I’m very slow at most crafts, because I’m so easily confused, so it was no surprise to me when Beth noticed I had lashed one of the eyes completely upside down.  She helped me undo the debacle then start again, which meant I would be taking the materials with me to finish the project at home.  I did finish the basket, and I’m pleased with the “not so perfect but good for a first effort” result.

The basket class went so well that I decided to take my daughter, Natalie, to the painting class, also offered by the Butler County Arts Guild.  Natalie paints birds, and she’s good at it.  I don’t paint anything, and I’m good at not painting it.  I can’t draw a stick man.  I can write a good story about the stick man.  His early life as a pencil lead, his mom a #2 yellow pencil, his dad an eraser.  His first home in a first-grader’s pencil box, the trauma of being transported back and forth to school in a backpack.  I cannot, however, draw him or paint him, for that matter.  I planned on sitting back, sipping coffee, and looking on as the other painters worked on their own masterpieces.  

If you know Don Lindsey—Have Brush Will Travel—you will understand why my plans did not come to fruition.  My protests fell on deaf ears as Don expressed the greatest faith that I could paint something that was at least recognizable.  Natalie painted a goldfinch.  It was beautiful.  I painted a pastoral scene—the sun, hills, shrubs, a road.  It was barely recognizable.  I placed the canvas in a donation box as soon as I got home.  It’s a stretch to think someone might actually want it, but you know how I am about recycling and upcycling…hope springs eternal.

In keeping with my new-found hobnobbing momentum, I attended my 50 Year class reunion on Saturday evening.  I graduated from Taylorsville High School, in Spencer County, and the reunion was held at the Colonel’s Lady in nearby Shelbyville.  It was a wonderful event.  I was amazed at what our class officers had put together.  They spent the last year gathering information and pictures from everyone in our class, even those who wouldn’t be able to attend.  Everything was collected into a beautiful color booklet for each one of us to take home.  The daughter of one classmate is a photographer, and she took the class photo, as well as random photos throughout the gathering.  During the last hour of the event, a group of our classmate’s spouses transferred all the photos to jump drives that were given to each person as they left.  These people need to be running the government.

Maybe, my new-found socializing will set a precedent in my life.  According to Sean Meshorer, in his book, THE BLISS EXPERIMENT, it takes 50 repetitions of a thing to form a new habit (sourcesofinsight.com).  That means I will have to leave my house 50 times in a row.  That’s pretty ambitious, but change is by nature ambitious, so don’t be surprised if I show up at your house sometime during the next 50 days.  Just offer me a cup of coffee and send me on my way, knowing you are an integral part of my social experiment.