I've been watching paint dry for an eternity - or in the neighborhood of at least five years. My name is exme and I'm addicted to paint. All kinds of paint - one gallon cans, pint-sized tins, tubes of acrylic, discounted water color palettes at the local Dollar store. I've so far been able to resist buying colorful nail polish on sale at Walgreens, though the urge has been there, but I don't paint my nails, and so it is hard to justify such an extravagance.
As I enter Home Depot or Lowe's, I stroll the aisles, searching for the paint counter; forgetting my original target purchase. Do they have mis-mixed paint on discount? Is it olive green or light sage? Is it one of the many shades of red or ochre that I find I covet but never actually use?
What about a whiter shade of pale?
My basement has rows of unused paint in slowly rusting gallon cans. I collect finely made one inch and two inch brushes with carefully calculated bias cut bristle tips. When I'm at work, I imagine being at home and initiating another painting project, which always and inevitably takes me three times as long to push to completion as I had planned. The prep, the materials, the time required are all things I forget, much like a new mother quickly forgets how much hard work birthing a baby is.
I experience a nearly orgasmic adrenaline rush in creating a new life for a wall or in adding that personal design scheme to a favorite chair and changing the atmosphere of a room.
I've mixed shades of paint that should never be mixed and have found new colors undiscovered in an infinite spectrum. Colors that I will never use.
Psychologists might have a field day with this. Why do I constantly crave the adjustment of my surroundings? Why am I compelled to make only cosmetic changes to walls that possibly require being torn down? Why do I throw myself repeatedly into painting projects that take time away from other, more pressing demands that I should meet?
Self-analysis settles on my personal, wholly subjective, completely selfish craving to change the world I live in. Perhaps I am focusing a rather impotent physical expression on my unfocused, subliminal dissatisfaction with the larger issues of my life. In an admittedly superficial way. My need to paint, my obsession with buying discounted paint has little to do with actual painting. Sure, I relish the slow drawing of a finepoint brush along a taped and masked stretch of molding. The easy opposing diagonal swipes and then vertical glide of the paint roller over an expansive wall begging for cover-up is immediate validation that I have accomplished something. But I'm changing something and it is in my meager power to do so, even if it has little residual effect on those larger issues.
As we approach the five year mark on September 11, I've found myself reflecting on how both painting and 9/11 changed my life, or at least my married state.
By 2001, I had been married for three years to a very nice guy, a guy who, if you were to ask, would be the first to tell you that he is a nice guy. Everyone we knew would agree.
By 2001, he found himself in over his head. He had married a wonderful gal (me), but the wonderful gal had three daughters who were really not too thrilled that their new stepdad wanted to assume the role of real "Dad" with a capital "D". Wonderful gal (me) had made attempts to make everyone happy, but with two teenagers and a preteen in the mix, wonderful gal's Mistress of Ceremonies skills weren't up to the task of constant amelioration of angst and grievances from the three circus rings of kids, current spouse and ex-spouse.
From ex-husband and biological dad, I heard grief about boundaries and regurgitated kid's complaints of stepdad. From then spouse, I heard that I was undercutting his authority by allowing them so much contact with dad, and that I should back him in his campaign to be called "dad" or "pop", when the kids were not comfortable with such nomenclature. From kids, I heard various versions of all sides and confusion on how to react, and resentment of usurpation of parenting by stepdad.
Many of you have been there or are there. There are no good books on this, there is no "right" way. Counseling, for almost a year and a half and two different counselors, helped little. Time and patience weren't enough.
Things were complicated by at least three major factors. One, my husband (at the time) had entered the marriage as a forty-year-old bachelor and had never been married or had kids. Two, he was from a family of six boys and one girl and the adolescent teen girl is a terrifying beast to such a man. Three, I had been a single parent, even while married to my first husband years before, as I had always been responsible for decision-making and taking charge, and earning the money. My place as primary disciplinarian and parenting philosophy guru of the household was likely too entrenched. Three strikes against the poor guy from the get-go.
By 2001, he had escaped for the better part of each week, either to work late at night or to our cabin about 30 minutes away from Seattle. We were fortunate enough to see him around two or three days a week, and when he was home, it was usually in a detached state with a laptop on his lap.
By 2001, I was looking to paint walls. For three years I had not painted any walls, as there was always some reason to not change the surfaces of our interiors. Our house was a huge old 1905 Craftsman, with some tacky wallpaper on some walls, and what had once been attractive, but was now a dreary marine gray paint on other walls. The previous owner, a good friend of my current at-the-time spouse, had been a smoker and there were faint nicotine stains in the kitchen and mudroom. I was ready to paint. He was not.
Through the summer of 2001, I championed the cause of paint, but my platform fell on deaf ears. Current spouse was more and more absent; my daughters were in those critical months of the critical teenage years and I know that peace is what he was seeking, but could not find in our home. My oldest daughter was the most rebellious and it began to seem that each time he was home, there was a conflict. I began to refuse to become involved as mediator and insisted that if they were to develop any affinity for each other, it had to be done without me as the referee. I encouraged talking, I promoted counseling for just the two of them without me; I encouraged better behavior on the part of both parties in strife. It took its toll on my marriage and I certainly felt helpless to stop the slide.
In September of 2001, I started painting one sunny weekend day when he had been absent from home for two days with limited contact. I scraped and removed wallpaper in the kitchen, primed the mudroom walls, and went out and bought paint. At full price, this time, not discount. I actually matched color tabs and mixed paint to a specific shade of Very Pale Real Butter yellow, almost cream.
And I painted for three days. I was finished with the job on September 10, 2001, late at night. When my spouse came home late that night, my painting went over like a lead balloon. How could I do such a thing without discussing it with him?
Of course, I thought to myself, selfishly, how could I be left day and night without communication and actual give-and-take? Without at least the occasional physical presence of my spouse, and with no real truthful explanation of the absence beyond the need for peace and quiet? How could my desires be discounted and devalued, like so many gallons of $5 mismatched pigment?
On September 11, late afternoon, there were no planes in the sky. Even the air seemed quiet and I recall no bird sounds or bug sounds. I remember a great deal of unfocused fear, settling in my gut like mildly poisoned food, churning my emotions with anxiety. We were far, far from the scenes of terror and tragedy that day, but it felt so close. The unknown future is so much more magnified when one doesn't have a supportive other standing nearby. Nerves, already stretched by constant low-level relationship stress, caused confusion and bewilderment in every communication over the next few days with my husband. I fell in love with him for who he was and his calm demeanor, his ability to troubleshoot issues with a kind of serenity. I know that part of me fell in love with him because these things also painted a picture of "safety" for me, and believe me when I say that safety can be sexy. I don't mean financial safety - I mean a kind of emotional harbor of safety.
In September of 2001, I lost that safe harbor. He removed himself forthwith to the cabin for another five days and I spent the balance of the week on my own with three kids who had hundreds of questions.
The walls I painted had caused a rift that we never repaired, and further cracks appeared on the surface of our apparently superficial marriage. By Christmas Eve of December 2001, on the way to Catholic Christmas mass, my daughters discovered a half dozen mini-tapes in his car with names written in magic marker. These were tapes from a tape recorder that he had secreted in the house and that was hooked up to the house telephone. For whatever reason, for who knows exactly how long, he had been taping phone conversations on our phone and I suspect the only reason he had ever come home for any time was to reset the damn machine and replace the tapes after listening to the content. He told us that he was looking for evidence that my oldest was into drugs or sex (she wasn't at the time) and that he had been doing this since June of that year.
No more safe harbor. When I read or discuss or debate the NSA program on wiretapping, especially with any Republicans (it doesn't happen often because I can't stomach it), I am always carried back to 2001 and the destruction of safety. I am appalled at what people will do and say when they act badly even with what they call out as the best of intentions, on the basis of what they think is right. When trust is lost, whether it is in the government or a loved one or a friend, there is damage to the heart's threshold that is never repaired.
I still collect cans of paint occasionally. And I paint walls when I really, really can't bring myself to resist the temptation to adapt my circumstances to the different picture projected in my mind's eye. If you slide me a color sample shaded in robin's egg blue, lightly faded, I may start prepping the immediate area with dropcloth and blue 3M painter's tape. Forgive me, please.
This is my painting story, my offering to occams hatchet, who semi-challenged me to do a diary on paint drying. I'm afraid I drifted off-topic. For what it's worth, I tried.