The pressure of COVID 19 has driven me to the paint store. Those over-the-top sky blue walls in the small bedroom are crying out for a change, after all these years. I should know better. I hate to paint; I am the world’s messiest painter, and I know this about myself. Still, those walls shout at me every time I look into the bedroom, “Change me!” It’s kind of like when you forget how much it hurt to have that baby and decide to try for another one. So off to the paint store. I choose the palest of pink for a new look.
It all starts sweetly enough. Stripped down to the bare essentials, I am ready for battle. I remind myself that “slow and steady wins the race” and begin to prime. A few minutes later, I step into something thick and wet and look down. Without knowing how it happened, I have spilled a large pool of paint on the sheet that I’ve ineptly spread over the floor. It gleams up at me, begging, “Don’t waste me”. I dip the brush into the pool and proceed, my confidence shaken. I’m beginning to sweat for no reason. I remind myself not to run to answer the phone in the other room, for by now my feet are somehow covered in paint, as are my arms and legs. On I go, edging painfully, rolling hopefully, looking back at the blips and blurbs, revisiting the worst spots. Finally the primer is on, sort of.
I’m spotted all over but decide to leave serious paint removal efforts to completion of the final coat; perhaps it satisfies some deep primal urge, some ancient tribal instinct, to paint my body for war. That’s it! It’s the Celtic warrior urge in me. I will fight on. The next morning, I heroically open the cherry blossom pink can and paint a corner. Horrific! It screams at me; the color will turn the room into a circus. And it wasn’t cheap. I pick up the phone and call two people, one who knows color and one who paints for cash. Will I never learn?
