On painting and gloss

A repost because the sentiments largely stand and I did, in fact, paint a room today!

Under the Gloss

Originally posted Oct, 2015:

For the past several months, the color of our basement bathroom's walls has made me feel peevish. I get a burr in my butt every time I go in there.

The lovely shade of green I once found peaceful and whose name, Sweet Caroline, I continue to adore, lately smacks of institutional hallways in need of scrubbing and better lighting. 

On Tuesday, Jack stayed home with an upset stomach, and during our hours together, I began outlining the dingy green room with thick strips of bright blue painter's tape. Pull, rip, align and press. Pull, rip, align and press. And on and on, in fits and starts, long strips and short ones, around the corners and up and down.

Yesterday, I finished the first coat of Smoke Embers plus 25%, a soothing dove gray. Already I feel the burrs slinking away.

I love to paint walls, or any flat expanse really. There before me lies the proverbial empty canvas, ready to be given new life with little more than a clean brush and a freshly shaken gallon.

Up and down I roll the brush, pausing only to dip it in more paint or check for spots I’ve missed. It’s meditation in action. Not only is a room transformed, colored anew with promise, but so too is my mind, blissfully unfettered now from having focused on just one repetitive task for the unknown number of minutes that have swept by.

This sort of focus, on a basic job that requires concentration but little other effort, allows me to both lose myself and remain present. My subconscious mind can flit and flutter, processing all manner of idea and query on which I may have been noodling.

During the brief, intimate time I spend with the walls, I see cracks and imperfections that I didn’t before. I run my fingers over slightly protruding nails, the drips and scuffs, the unknown gunk that landed on the surface one day and decided to stick.

It's not a perfect plane underneath an aging coat of shine but rather an imperfect thing that's been added to and taken from over the years. It has supported and weathered, been asked to hide and also to bare itself completely. I like being reminded of this. I like knowing these walls better.

The walls are much like people really, even those who seem glossy and impervious to bump or fault but who, of course, aren’t. It’s worth taking time to get to know people, and it’s worth letting people really get to know us.

In all the ways society today makes us feel more connected, I think it often does so only superficially. It’s so easy to show and share only what we want others to see; impressions more than selves. A coat of paint rather than the supporting structure.

But what’s lost is depth. History. Knowing. Being known. Being proudly unique and proudly fallible, for each of us is both original and imperfect. That’s what makes us human.

Three girlfriends came for breakfast this morning. One brought fruit, unwashed and still in the plastic clamshells, and apologized for that. Another teared up as we talked about our kids and our pride in and worries for them, and she apologized for that.

But I couldn’t have been happier because plastic clamshells and random tears are just real life slowing down long enough on a busy Friday morning to wash fruit and share a Kleenex or two with unvarnished friends. That’s what’s under gloss. No apologies needed. 

The Good Men Project

Today I was thrilled to make my debut on The Good Men Project, a site that seeks to best understand, and encourage action on, what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. My essay, What's Right Is Always Worth the Fight, is about watching last week's election with Jack and also about the larger responsibility and opportunity I feel I have as a mother raising two sons. 

Today also found me spending many hours with friends. I joined one in her kitchen to debrief about the election and also catch up as we rarely have enough time together. Over cups of tea and honest conversation, we made a double batch of Nanny's Cranberry Sauce for our Thanksgiving tables. I can't adequately tell you how much it means to me that so many have adopted one of Nanny's recipes as their own.

Later, I took a long walk with another friend, another woman of whom I'm deeply fond and never have enough time with. It was a beautiful fall day, albeit unseasonably warm, and it felt good to stride up and down hills together, admiring the foliage and feeling the sun's heat on our cheeks.

My throat aches tonight, and I am taking myself to bed with a new book, Hillbilly Elegy. As Trump announces his appointees, I find myself increasingly worried about the future of our country. Jeff Sessions, an on-the-record racist, and Mike Flynn, an outspoken anti-Islamist, are not tolerant men. Please, friends, take action against this bigotry!

On internet friends and cardinals and Nanny

For one thing, hilarious text exchanges with good friends are really hard to beat. That's all on that subject, but if you haven't flown back and forth with a pal, emojis and honesty flying left and right, you really should try it prontissimo. 

As y'all might know by now, I have taken a number of writing classes and through them have made a number of friends. These many women and two men (hear, hear Freddie and Adam) have enriched my life in so many ways. Anyone who doubts the veracity of relationships forged online should pause and reconsider. While some are wholly fake, disappointing, or otherwise no good and totally ephemeral, others are the brightest of surprises, the happiest of new weights securing us to life and world.

Perhaps because writing is an artistic craft, a number of the folks I've met are not only tremendous wordsmiths but also talented photographers. I feel lucky every day to have in my home prints by Sophia and Eliza who graciously sent me high res jpegs of their work. Imagine the near impossibility of knowing these women, from Australia and Africa, before the internet. Imagine the chance even with that of meeting, of becoming friendly, of supporting each other's work, of sharing talent and beauty with someone you might never meet in person.

One writer-photographer, Terri, who captures spectacular scenes from nature once mentioned a lovely thing she'd heard about cardinals: that they're messengers from loved ones who've died, come to visit, offer some peace and love, or serve as a reminder of someone we miss.

Nanny always loved watching the birds at her window feeders. When Nanny became largely chair bound, Mom hung a feeder directly in her line of sight. As do most of us, she'd curse the squirrels and their Houdini methods of gluttony. But mostly she'd enjoy the simple act of watching birds come to feed. She liked cardinals' flashy red coat. I wonder if the scarlet hue reminded her of the lipstick and nail polish she always wore as a younger woman.

I imagine the way she watched the birds is the same way she used to watch her children and grandchildren eat the food she made them- simple, delicious food that never seemed to run out.

A few years ago, a copper birdfeeder caught my eye, and on a whim, I bought it. It boasts no fancy design or aesthetic. It just seemed sturdy, and I like copper. I hung it from the sugar maple in our old back yard, from a branch I could see from pretty much every window on the back of our house. And I came to relish every single visitor, though I did, on occasion, curse the squirrels.

We now have two birdfeeders and and an even greater variety of winged visitors to them. We also have more capable squirrels. They are eating me out of house and home, and recently, Jack and I greased the pole on which one of our feeders hangs. We waited for hours to watch a squirrel be foiled by our plot, but to no avail; the grease didn't slow those buggers at all.

In any case, I see cardinals every week, and I am certain that each is Nanny. Or at least that each is a reminder to think of Nanny and some bit of wisdom or cooking tip or grace that she shared with me before she died.