Afternoon March 28th

2023.03.18

Lesson: Landscape painting with gradient sections, Amica Arbutus Manor

Today Paul stepped in for a second, just to show Olivia---the other volunteer whom he is close with---what new art he’s been working on, but very soon left because his wife has COVID and is currently in quarantine. We probably won’t see him for a while.

The three ladies all came today–Jocelyn, Joyce, and Penny. I still mix up the names of Jocelyn and Joyce sometimes… During the session, we started a conversation about their schooling. Penny started talking about her life in high school, mentioning how she really loved biology and excelled in Grade eleven. Penny was at the top of her class, a near straight-A student, and everyone around her recommended that she apply for scholarships and academic awards.

As she recalled leaving high school to study Zoology at UBC, Penny mentioned her boyfriend, who was in his second year at the university. Penny was definitely popular in high school, one day, she reminisces, she’d walked into class with the latest Beatles cut and showed it off to all her friends.

Of course I had to ask her about her dating life in Magee Secondary, where she had studied. Penny talked about how she’d started dating a guy when she was fifteen, but after a year, dumped him for the best friend, who was obviously hotter. “It was certainly mean, yes, but I gotta go for the, you know, better guy….Oh he got over it!”

Olivia and I were beyond shocked to learn that the only boy she’d dated at fifteen was the man she’d been married to her entire life. “It was very common back then,” she said, “to marry whoever it was you dated in high school.” I was amazed and found this incredibly romantic; Olivia laughed and told Penny about how her ex-best friend switched boyfriends every week.

"My husband was two years older than I am, and he was in the military for a while, so I wouldn't see him over the summer.” “But you married your high school sweetheart?” I was entranced. “You think you’d want to marry the person you dated in high school?” Penny asked in return. “Well, I’d rather not go through heartbreak,” I reasoned. “Fair, but again, you know, the hardest is the seven-year itch.”

Penny recalled how much she loved biology. “When you love something,” she says, “studying isn’t even studying anymore. That’s why it was so easy for me.” She does hate plant biology, however.

Penny used to be a figure skater, a promising one, in fact, before one night she’d gotten hurt and fell into a long fever. “Sure, I skated, but never again competitively,” said Penny. Penny’s father never supported her skating, but she was a loving parent to her children, all of whom grew up skating and skiing. After two years in Zoology, Penny, now 19, started teaching 9 year-olds as an elementary schoolteacher. “These were the first students I’d ever taught,” she says, “I loved them so, so much and we always kept in touch, and one day I received a phone call from one of them, asking me to come to their high school graduation. And I said sure! Of course I’ll be there.”

“Oh the parties,” Penny interjected, “the parties were just fabulous. It doesn’t get better than the.” I absolutely had to ask about the fashion– “I love dresses in the 50s!” I said. “Of course! The puffy dresses, and then it was the Mini skirt—they were very in style.” We moved through the ages, “there weren’t disco balls then, that’s for sure. Even the Beatles came later—this is the 70s, you know.” The 70s? “Oh my god, did you guys listen to ABBA?”

“Oh of course! I love ABBA!” Penny grew excited, a wide smile immediately spread across her face.

“I’ll be turning seventeen soon,” I said, “and I can finally sing to Dancing Queen.”

Penny laughed: “That is a good song, Dancing Queen, really good.”

I found “Dancing Queen” on Spotify, and as the bouncy first chords rolled out, Penny’s eyes met mine, and we both started dancing and laughing. We then played “Fernando,” to which we all sang our lungs out to. Emily joined in—she knew all the lyrics. Like a hot summer night in 1972, I saw Penny, seventeen, Beatle-haired in a mini dress, jiving and waltzing with me. Then I turn around and see Penny, the same twinkle glittering in her eye, clapping her hands in her wheelchair.

Jocelyn’s life seemed quite different. After marrying her husband in the 70s, Jocelyn continued her professional career in an orchestra as the first violinist. Their marriage was in the newspapers, at a time when you’d either pay small sums of money to exhibit your marriage to the world or was famous enough to be recognized by the city, which Jocelyn described as a “town”: “Vancouver was quite small back then, dear.” Jocelyn was the latter; her husband, who was in the Marines, had saved a drowning young lady from the ocean.

“He was standing there on the boat against the rails, and I was watching him,” Jocelyn said, the picture right before her eyes, “He’d just been handed his fresh new marine uniform, the cap, the jacket, the boots, everything. Lots of medals. He heard her thrashing, put his uniform down and lept in.” Her husband was awarded the honorary citizen degree by the city; this was before they married. Jocelyn plays the viola now and has not heard of ABBA. “Dating? You know, there was this one girl who got pregnant in high school. She left and never came back.” “She just hangs around with too many people, you know.”