Rocks Along the Way

Rock mandala. All photos courtesy of Stephanie Young.

By Stephanie Young

Moving to Las Vegas three years ago has been an adjustment—to the bright lights, the climate, the wind, the dry air, the cactus, and to all of the rocks. There are rocks everywhere: giant piles of discarded ones by the side of the road, decorative ones arranged in lawns, beautiful boulders enhanced by the sun, and loose gravel on the trails. You will find rocks along every path.

I retired from teaching about six years ago. For me teaching art was a labor of love; it was my passion. I looked forward to going to work every day, planning the lessons, and especially the joy, the delight when the class was in the zone. However, it also can be physically exhausting, and it was important to me to offer the highest quality art lessons possible. Eventually I was teaching over 500 students a week. That was the tipping point when it wasn’t possible to continue with the quality when I was required to teach so many students. My health, my peace of mind were being compromised, and I decided to retire from a job I loved.

I thought that once I retired from teaching art I would finally have time to do my own art, take classes, volunteer in schools, and travel. Well I ended up mainly just traveling. I find that I am not self disciplined enough to do art on my own unless I have the structure of taking a class. Plus art is a social thing for me, not something to do in isolation. I did find an art class to take in Las Vegas for a while, and I was able to travel too.

Well, the pandemic shut all that down. Sure, I could still do my own art, actually had plenty of time to do it and few other options. But I just couldn’t get myself to do anything creative. I felt so isolated. I couldn’t seem to concentrate, and the feeling of heaviness in my soul was crippling.

I had just moved to Las Vegas a few months before the pandemic hit. With it, I felt so isolated and lonely. However, one thing I could do was take walks, go on hikes. So I did that, obsessively, until my poor dog would hide from me when I got his leash out! New to the area, I was looking forward to hiking at Red Rocks, Valley of Fire, and other beautiful places as well. A low point was when those places were shut down too. Long walks in the city became my way of coping with the stress, the health and financial fears, and the uncertainty. Then I began noticing that I would often find painted rocks along the path or sidewalk. Sometimes with messages of hope. I really looked forward to finding them, and I felt a connection to the person who left them there.

One thing we sure have a lot of here in Las Vegas are rocks. I discovered an artist teaching how to paint mandalas on rocks on Zoom. I tried it and found that painting dot mandalas on rocks to be meditative and soothing. So I would start out on my walks weighed down with my pockets full of painted rocks and leave them along the way. It was a kind of connection, it was communicating, and it helped the feeling of isolation a bit.

Soon after I started painting rocks I had an opportunity to share the technique as well. A friend was diagnosed with cancer, and her friends wanted to do something to support her. So I suggested we get together and I would teach the group how to paint designs on rocks. We spent a lovely afternoon on her deck painting on rocks. Since then this heroic woman has had numerous surgeries for cancer, chemotherapy, radiation, her father died, and she and her husband had COVID. More recently, her mother passed away, and she contacted me to let me know that she and her daughter had spent the day painting various designs on rocks each with a different symbol of her mother. I was so touched that that was how they coped with their grief, and how they chose to honor their mother. Sometimes you throw a rock into a pond, and the ripples just go on and on.

Stephanie’s friend painted these rocks to honor her mother.

It started with rocks, and, gradually after a year or so into the pandemic, I began doing and teaching art again. My two granddaughters, ages six and nine, live in Los Angeles and became my students via Zoom. They were at home doing virtual school while their parents tried to work from home. To help keep them busy, and to regularly connect with them, I began to do virtual art lessons a few times a week. I would ask them what they wanted to learn to draw or paint and come up with ideas for lessons. I thought that after a while they would grow tired of it and not want to continue. But that didn’t happen, probably because they didn’t have any other options, but we did it for a year. They even wanted me to do a Zoom rock painting lesson with their friends for their virtual birthday party! Seeing them, sharing art lessons with them was a way to connect that I missed so much.

Then one day my granddaughters FaceTimed me saying they had a surprise for me. They had taken all of the art that we had done on Zoom, and hung it up, filling the walls from floor to ceiling of their bedroom. They even labeled each piece with a title. Then for the “art show” they played music and gave me a FaceTime tour. I have experienced many art shows in my career as an art teacher, but this one moved me to tears. Without a doubt I know, it wasn’t their creations, but their joy in doing art and sharing it, was what was most important.

One thing that worried me was whether my adult children would all lose their jobs. The company that my 29-year-old daughter works for made cutbacks and laid off employees right away. I would wake up at night thinking she would be next. Fortunately, that didn’t happen but the office in San Francisco shut down, and she moved in with us. She took a cut in pay and worked remotely. We all thought that the pandemic would be over in a few months, so she kept paying rent on her apartment in San Francisco. Meanwhile she lived with us in our retirement community (not what any young adult would choose to do), and she stayed with us for a year. It was really the first time we were able to spend time with her and get to know her since she went away to college. Our relationship deepened as we planned meals, went on hikes, played board games, and, of course, painted on rocks.

As seniors were super careful about coronavirus precautions, got vaccinated twice, boosted, and observed the mask-wearing policy. We managed to avoid getting sick until this past holiday. We hadn’t been with our family in Los Angeles for a long time, and we were looking forward to finally being able to spend Christmas with them and to take the grandkids to San Diego for a special trip. The grandkids all tested negative the day before we arrived, and then tested again the day we left for San Diego. The first morning we were there, we woke up to the news that the older one tested positive for the virus. Since she was asymptomatic we didn’t believe it,and gave her a rapid test. Well that was positive too. She was devastated that we had to go home, and she sobbed “now Christmas is ruined!” We took them back home, then returned to a lonely Christmas here. A few days later my husband said he was tired and had the sniffles, and he tested positive. I knew I was doomed and developed symptoms on New Year's Eve. He was better in a few days, not the same for me. I have asthma, and I developed some chest congestion, as well as the usual “mild symptoms,” which means I didn’t need to be hospitalized. But I felt crappy for a month, and even four months later, I still experience some long COVID symptoms. Meanwhile I am back to hiking along those rocky paths, but my dog hasn’t forgotten, and still hides when I get out his leash.

Recently I have gotten back into painting. For me, with my teaching background, art is meant to be shared. My path toward healing began with an artist sharing how to paint on rocks. It was the sharing—with my daughter when she lived with us, with my grandkids over Zoom, with total strangers when I left painted rocks for them to discover—that was healing. Simple connections when I felt so isolated and stressed due to the pandemic are what saved me. My journey started out with a pocketful of rocks, and as I would leave them for others to find along the path, my load became lighter.

Stephanie Young has always needed a creative outlet. She was a studio art major in college and fortunately also got a teaching credential and discovered teaching art was her passion. However, there weren’t any jobs at the elementary level, so she did other things until eventually a job came up. She loved teaching art and every day looked forward to it. Stephanie retired a few years ago and has many fond memories of teaching. The thing she remembers most was when there was an energy in the room—the class was in the zone, “They got it!” And how happy it made the kids, not just the ones who excelled in school, but all the kids. For some it was the only thing they looked forward to at school.

Her other passion is hiking. She moved to Las Vegas and then the pandemic hit. Fortunately she could still get out and hike—hike here, there, and everywhere! For her there is a simplicity in the desert that is magical. At first it seems like just a lot of rocks and cacti, but look closer and there’s layers to find. The desert has amazing resiliency, able to survive on very little and adapt. We can all learn from that.

These days Stephanie is able to paint once again. Trying to capture the colors of the desert. And of course, hiking along a path, maybe she will find a painted rock along the way.

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Kathleen KuoJune 27, 2022J3 Comments