Choosing Activities in "The Home"

Sometimes it's hard to get your motor started and get yourself in gear. I'm at that place now. I have things I want to do, but doing them requires the time and space to focus and explore. I have a friend who wants to help me, but she wants to help me learn to paint. She is an artist and she shares that talent with others here. They are experiencing the joys of watercolor. 

I just want to experience being with the friends. I enjoy the charcoal drawing more than the watercolor. Of course the watercolor is prettier and more colorful, but I'm not talented in that way, and I know it. 

Whatever talent I have is with words, not color. I write a little poetry and a lot of essays, and occasionally some history or fiction, but I'll never be an artist. I will love my artist friends. I hope that's enough.

It seems to me that concern over depression and loneliness in old people may be more apparent to others, and less a problem for the old people than researchers and observers want to believe. I'm convinced that frantic activity and decorations don't substitute for meaningful effort and work. These people have lived a long time and had many successes and great energy to get to where they are now. Trivial crafts and foolishness doesn't replace that in the day to day living. Visit a relative in a retirement home or assisted living apartment and see what I mean.