Surprises

We're celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary this year. Katie told me that she had a surprise outing planned. The thing about Katie and surprises is that she gets so excited about them that the only surprise you get is that she told you early what your surprise is. Her enthusiasm knows no bounds. If she manages to maintain her vow of secrecy I have a pretty good track record of guessing what the surprise will be. If I guess correctly, her facial expression makes it all too obvious that I have divined her surprise. Chalk that up to her aforementioned enthusiasm without bounds. Katie is a sharing individual so most surprises come early around here.

This year was different. I told Katie that I didn't want to guess her surprise for fear of outing a reaction and ruining her meticulous efforts. She must have been watching spy movies regularly to keep up her resolve and practice the "I know nothing, honest" face. Come to think of it, perhaps that is why she has been walking around with a briefcase handcuffed to her wrist. I figured it was a new diaper bag fad.

Thursday was surprise night. I kept trying to ease some info out of her by asking things like "do I need to dress up for this" or, "should I change into pants for our possibly outdoor adventure?" The longest response I got was "you should be fine". Well. No luck. Short of strapping her to a chair and shining a bright light in her face I wasn't going to get any information. In the car on the way to the mysterious location of surprise and enchantment I casually offered up my best guess as to what the surprise was. "Is it past roller-derby season?" I asked. It wasn't I was informed, but I could tell that Katie knew that was my best shot and it had gone wide. I knew I was stumped so I patiently waited to arrive at surprise spot.

Arrive we did. We were just making the start time for the activity so I didn't get a chance to see the name of the business we entered. A half step inside I realized I didn't need to know what it was called-I had already been asked to don a paint smock and pick an easel. This is about when the surprise settled in.

Normally the word surprise comes with connotations of intrigue, excitement and mystery. My feelings were intrigue and mystery bookending anxiety. Van doesn't paint. Van doesn't make pretty things with his hands. There is a reason that photography is my medium of choice.

If the class-commencing mantra of "anyone can paint" (what a total Pixar ripoff) was intended to calm my nerves, it failed miserably, like me and painting were about to- or so I thought. Once we started slopping some paint on the canvas and the music was blasting I settled into a comfortable rhythm. For the first half of the class while we were layering background colors over the canvas I was feeling pretty good about my right-brain rebirth, "anyone can paint" I thought.

Then we started painting the trees. Considering that the extent of my painting instruction in life consisted of watching more hours of Bob Ross painting happy trees than I should feel comfortable publicly relaying, you would think I could paint a tree. In the end I think they turned out okay, but my art anxiety returned the minute I started brushing tree trunks onto the canvas. I quickly found that the more I tinkered with what I had done, the less I liked it. I toughed it out and took a less-is-more mentality for the remainder of the evening. By the end it all came together again the canvas and I were one.

For me, the biggest surprise of the evening was how much I enjoyed painting. Don't get me wrong, I'm mostly gonna stick with poetry and photography from here on out, but I totally get why people love to paint.

It was nice to not have to worry about investing in all of the equipment or having to clean up. But I find it weird that they serve drinks while you paint. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but having your drink right next to a jar full of water for rinsing your brushes is an acrylic ingestion response team waiting to happen. Especially because everyone is drinking alcohol- by the 2nd drink I'd imagine some might have difficulty keeping track of where they are rinsing their brushes. I suppose that makes it all the more embarrassing for me since their trees bear a resemblance to something in nature much more than mine.