Getting Connected in Tucson

I think I mentioned – I have a new doctor, yay! I’ve been trying and trying to find a good primary care provider. I’m relieved to have maybe found someone.

Turns out he also runs a Meet-up group to introduce newbies to the wonders of Tucson and to help get to know people. Well, I’ve been trying to get to know people, sign me up! It’s very hard to meet people when you don’t go to school, church, gym, etc., and don’t work in an office with coworkers. I still consider myself new to Tucson, because we were very Albuquerque-oriented until last month.

You know how one right person can help you find a lot of great people and places? I like the housecleaners and the veterinarian he recommended, so I thought, sure I’ll try his Meet-up group too. My doctor’s Meet-up group is an LGTBQ+ group, but it’s not a dating group. It’s a social group for people new to Tucson – he just wants to make sure that LBTBQ+ folks feel welcomed.

Meet-up, for those of you who might not know, is an online forum where people can organize groups with the purpose of meeting (in real life) to do shared activities . Meet-up groups usually organize around a shared interest, such as book clubs, hiking groups, bicycling, art, music, etc.

Anyway, the next scheduled event for the Meet-up group that my doctor started was an evening at the zoo. Wandering around the zoo sounded easier to me than cocktails at a bar or something (most Meet-up groups meet in public spaces, and there’s no shortage of groups focused around happy hour). I’m not a happy-hour person. But the zoo sounded good; outdoors and informal. I wouldn’t be stuck in my chair trying to figure out how to make small talk with the person next to me, in a loud environment where I can’t hear anything anyway. The zoo – I figured I could go to the zoo.

Not that I actually like going to anything with a group of strangers. Not even outdoor events on a lovely summer evening. Uh-hu, no way. I’m not into small talk with strangers. But I decided to go in order to get to know people. I like people AFTER I get to know them. And I don’t know of any way to skip the “getting to know them” stage, UNFORTUNATELY!

Moving is very difficult and getting to know your new community is a big part of that. Although we are lucky, in the winter time we have relatives in Tucson; Dan and Dawn and their three kids. It’s great to actually have family in town and kids to play in the pool. But they are busy in Minnesota during the summer.

Anyway – Meet-up groups – this isn’t the first Tucson group I’ve tried. I’ve checked out two or three book clubs, a couple of community service groups, several art classes, and a cancer support group, but have not found a group I resonated with yet.

So off to the zoo I went. I was so nervous I nearly went out with two different shoes on. Clearly, I need more light in my closet!

Luckily I noticed the mismatch as I was leaving and managed to get to the event with a matching pair of shoes! As an aside, you may be wondering why I own two nearly identical pairs of sandals. I bought the second pair in Ann Arbor this spring when I showed up with a suitcase full of boots and jackets, expecting cold rain, and ended up getting wonderful summer weather. Anyway, one is pure white and the other is off-white, which is quite different 😉

I made it to the zoo group, and it was fine. Here’s a picture of giraffes. I didn’t take very many pictures because I was busy trying to make small talk with a bunch of people I’ve never met before. Ugh. They were all nice though, whew.

So do I have a bunch of new friends now? Well, no, it’s never that easy. It takes consistency – meeting the same people several times. That requires attending something with the same group repeatedly. Which requires finding something I’m willing to do more than once! I’d actually go back to the zoo, or other activities that feature wandering around outside, but the next couple of activities scheduled for this particular group are happy-hour types of things, which I am not willing to do.

I have also tried a couple of book clubs. I would find a book club scheduled to read a book that sounded good to me, so I’d join the book club and read the book. But the next month I would be out of luck because I wouldn’t want to read the next book. Or the book after that – they would keep choosing books I didn’t feel like reading. Apparently I lack flexibility. I like to read – and I read a lot, and I read a lot of different genres – but I guess I only want to read what I want to read.

Maybe I would do better with something more creative? Next, I tried an on-line drawing class. Problem was, the students all left their videos off. And there was no time to chat with the other students. It was 100% instruction, no sitting around drawing and chatting. It was no different than watching a YouTube video, which I can do for free whenever I want. As far as making friends goes, the online art class was absolutely useless. Next!

Next, John and I went to several in-person painting classes. We had a good time but never made any new friends. The problem was, even though we went repeatedly, we never saw the same people twice. They were stand-alone painting classes, and not something most people went to regularly.

Also, people would go to the painting class as an outing with their own group of friends. They weren’t looking to make other friends. It was like showing up at a restaurant and expecting to make friends with parties at other tables – uh, no, that doesn’t usually work that way (unless it’s a small local cafe with regulars). Anyway, those painting classes didn’t work to make friends, although we did have fun painting.

What I needed was a repeating activity so I would see the same people several times in a row. Next I chose a 4-part art class, which met once a week for a month. That should work, right? As it turned out, there was only one other woman in the class! It was just me, the instructor and one other person. And the other student was grumpy as all get-out. She was struggling with her art – unhappy with her progress, frustrated with the assignment, and dissatisfied with the instructor. I don’t think she even once acknowledged my presence in the room. So no friend material there, although I was somewhat sympathetic with her plight. I also didn’t like having to do what the instructor was telling us to practice. Ok, fail. Next!

This past Sunday I tried a new group – some artists meeting at a coffee shop. I liked how it was set up – we just bring our own sketch books and do our own thing. As I’ve mentioned, I like doing my own thing, lol. And this group that meets once per month, so with luck, I will slowly get to know the regular attenders.

Plus, the coffee shop was close by and the meet-up was free except for the coffee, and well, what did I have to lose? Other than my pride, because I’m not actually an artist.

Luckily I’m not self-conscious about not being a good artist. I just winged it. I brought some oil pastels, which I don’t really even know how to use. Pastels are complicated. There’s hard ones and soft ones and chalk and oil. Who knows! I brought oil pastels because they seemed almost like crayons and are less messy than the chalk pastels, which get colored dust everywhere. At least they do how I use them, lol.

Pastels can’t be mixed together directly and then applied as one newly created color like paint can. And I’m all about color more than form. So I may end up feeling limited by the pastels. But blending paints takes a good amount of table space and something to blend them on, and water, and brushes, and we’re talking about a bunch of women crammed into a coffee shop on a busy Sunday morning. Pastels sounded more practical.

It actually worked out very well. The woman who sat across from me, Becky, was friendly and non-judgmental. She gave me a useful pointer without being overbearing with her advice. She saw me smearing and blending the pastels with my fingers and mentioned that they make blending stumps for that purpose. I am truly a novice and I’m sure anyone who knows the first thing about art would just be cringing to watch me!

In this next photo, the women standing on the right is Becky, and the woman on the left, bent over her work, is Kristina, spelled the same way as I spell my name. There were also three of us along the windows where I was sitting, as well as several at a larger table behind Becky.

Someone complemented me on my perspective and proportion, which was hilarious because that is exactly what I did the worst, lol. I put John’s head too high up from his kayak, elongating and straightening his back in an awkward and unrealistic pose. But oh well!

Anyway, Becky encouraged me to take art classes from the art school that sponsored the Meet-up (the Meet-up wasn’t a class, it was just a group of us doing our own art and chatting, probably organized as a means of drumming up new business for the school). But I don’t think I want to take a real art class at an art school. First of all, I like doing my own thing. I don’t want to draw something that someone else wants me to draw, in the way they want me to draw it, with the media they want me to use.

Secondly, I don’t want to start striving. I don’t want to know what I’m doing wrong and feel like I need to do better. I don’t want to be struggling to do it right. I don’t want to be dissatisfied because I can see how wrong it is. I don’t want art to become work, with goals and effort and success and failure. There is so little in life that I do just for fun. I’m usually too goal-oriented. John and I both work so hard. I just want to have a few areas of my life where I am not always striving to do better and better.

I like my “ignorance is bliss” approach to art. It’s freeing. Plus I’m not there to become an artist, I’m there to meet new people. If I can relax and occupy my mind with something fun and engrossing, all the better!

Although maybe I should buy some smoother paper – that rough watercolor paper made it hard to blend the pastels. And maybe I could buy a few blending stumps, like Becky suggested. And maybe if I did a better job of marking all they key points before shading I would get the perspective and proportions more accurate…and maybe…

I’m not against learning all those things. As long as it doesn’t become yet another area of my life where I’m suddenly no longer good enough. And yeah, I hear you. That’s all in my head. The idea of not being good enough is something that I could/should ideally just let go of, mentally. But certain activities and situations are tailormade to trigger “not good enough” gremlins. Like art classes!

Next up, I might go to an African drumming class tomorrow. I have to decide soon, because they want RSVPs so they can do a head-count to make sure they have enough drums for everyone. It sounds fun but it also sounds intimidating. And it’s not particularly close by. I hate going to things for the first time. But it could turn out to be the best thing, right?

I have a friend who also moved to Tucson from Albuquerque, who loves, loves, loves his senior baseball group. He plays every morning and it’s all he ever talks about. Those baseball guys are his best friends now. Total instant built-in community. So maybe someday I will find my equivalent of senior baseball. It’s probably not African drumming, but who knows, it could be!

Then yesterday I signed up for yet another book club. I have two weeks to get the book and read it. It looks like a good book, but we’ll see. If not, should I make myself read it anyway? Or just give up on book clubs? Because I’ve already tried a few of them now.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful for the new friends I have made. Here’s a great photo of my friend, Amy, laughing because a beautiful green beetle had just landed in her hair.

Amy and I went for coffee the other day, and enjoyed their semi-enclosed patio early in the morning before it got ridiculously hot. The big green beetle flew around and around before abruptly deciding to land on her head. We had a great time sipping iced coffee and chatting, until it suddenly we realized it had gotten too hot. We checked our phones and yep, 97º. That’s about my limit – assuming I’m sitting in the shade with iced coffee!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism