Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Shut Up and Color

The paint is yellow like egg yolk and I wonder if I'm going to regret this.  I dip my brush in the bowl and drag the edge along the side for just enough not too much to cut in along the chair rail.  precisely.  Because I don't use painter's tape anymore when I do this.  I know my way around a straight line.  And I'll paint over the chair rail later anyway when  in case my mind wanders and I slip up.

For now I just try to focus on the paint.  Don't think about any other thing except that line.  Painting is like telling the voice in my head to shut up and color.  But it doesn't shut up.  At least it's not zoomy anymore.  Now it's like a lava lamp.  Thoughts bounce liquid and slow becoming other thoughts and drifting all around.  Which reminds me I need a new bulb for the lava lamp.

Painting in January makes the paint tend to slide off the wall.  What I just rolled out all bright and pretty-like gets melty looking and weird in less than a minute.  I cock my head and stare but it's like trying to watch the sun move, you can't really see it as it's happening.  Only after you turn away.  And I wonder how things went sideways.  I thought I had a good handle on it and... then it was over there.  just gone.

At first after things went sideways, the zoomy voice in my head wailed and gnashed teeth in chaotic lament.  Nothing made sense.  not any singular thing presented to me made sense of any kind and I shuffled through town like a basket of banana nut muffins for weeks.  Eyes glazed and glassy with unsheddable tears while the zoomy voice careened loudly.  I didn't understand.  I didn't know what happened.  Everything was magic a minute ago and then...nothing made sense anymore.  Everything I knew was wrong wrong wrong.  for weeks.

Even the stupid puzzle didn't end up making sense.  Because there's One. Piece. Missing.  still.  Which could only be more literal if I'd put that piece in a box and hucked it into the woods.

It all made me nauseous and tired and snappy and confused and sad.  Painting was the only thing that could make this better.  In a "jesus take the wheel" kind of fog I let someone else choose which color. and even which room.  All I did was pick up the brush and here we are.

Beginning the second coat and lava thoughts swirl, blending sense better now.  Nothing makes the kind of sense it did before and certainly not the kind of sense I hoped but I'm beginning to understand.  The truth  told to me was temporary.  

It wasn't a lie.  It was real enough at the time.  But it was fleeting.  Like a UFO sighting or a ghost out of the corner of your eye.  You know it was there, you felt it.  But now...gone.  And trying to explain it makes people raise their eyebrows and look at you sideways and you realize it's better to just stop talking and paint.

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