Thursday, March 18, 2021

A Lifetime

 The ceilings that I painted today are from the old house (the sign says 1848, the deed predates that). It wasn't a simple matter of painting the ceilings. Tim loved the old beams, and so he left them exposed. We paint the spacing between them white to make the beams stand out more, and to brighten the rooms. This means that you have to trim in the edges of every single one of the areas between the beams. That's a lot of trim work. 

A LOT.

I did not stop for lunch, although I did grab a keto bar out of the car when I started getting shaky. I painted for 7 hours and got the job done. 

Tim believed that I should be able to run a roller down the middle of the beams, getting close to the beams but not actually hitting them. He believed wrong. I got myself a trim brush, and continued on. 

It was a gray day outside and it rained for most of the day. Inside the snug old house I clambered up and down the ladder, moving from one place to another, and continuing on. I had my phone plugged in listening to Pandora, my favorite station being Mumford and Son.

The Fray found God on the corner of First and Armistad: 



I remembered driving in a car with an earnest 16 year old discussing finding God in the most unlikely places and in the most unlikely people and now she's 31 years old, married and living in the UK after roaming the world for most of her 20s. 


The GooGoo Dolls sang Iris, and I thought of my own little Iris, dear to my heart, my recent visit with her, and for the space of another song, I was with her again. 

Endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy with Cara. 

Driving to my third shift job

The music played on and the memories danced on. John Legend was the music for Dylan and Brittani's wedding dance, 


Five for Fighting's 'Superman' reminded me of Brianna.

 Owl City was singing about the fireflies that William and I caught last summer,


 Tracy Chapman brought the another time and the hunger to be someplace else doing something else, anywhere else, anything else. 


I painted on steadily through the music as bits and pieces of my life flashed before my eyes: the people,  the memories, the thoughts and regrets and joys and trials and errors and successes and...

...seven hours, I was gathering my things, done at last, A gray haired woman drove her gray car through a the drizzle of a gray day and slowly came back to the present. 



8 comments:

  1. I love the Fray and Snow Patrol. Painting is exhausting, although I do love the freshness of the end result. My parents have open beam ceilings in their living room although there is light wood between the dark beams. My aunt who loved to criticize called it "the chicken coop." She was an unpleasant woman.

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  2. Tim is sooooooo wrong about running the roller down the middle. So happy you did the job.

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  3. Ah, that Tracy Chapman album... when I first bought it I played it over and over till I knew every word. As for "trimming in" in relation to painting, it is not a term I have ever heard before though I have done plenty of painting in my time. How's your neck Debby?

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  4. You would have made a great DJ Debby. I listen to music when I'm walking and gardening. Especially Kansas.

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  5. My neck? Ever hear of The Kinks? This also applies to my shoulders and my back. Tim said, "You could have split it up into two days." I said, "If ever a job just needed to get done, it was this one." I can only say that I am tickled pink to have nothing more than laundry and a cake to bake on my agenda today.

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  6. You are younger than I, or fitter, or both. :)

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  7. A DJ? Not really, Northsider. Just one of those suggestible souls who are led by the music they are listening to.

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