Renovation Reality -paint

The new tile in my bathroom is a medium dark mock slate with a predominance of grey green.  There are purples, gold, terracotta, and deep grey with a  little bit of pea green here and there.  I have had a curtain with those colors plus fleshy hues for a few year.  I like it, so when I decided on the paint I did it with the curtain and tile in mind.  I looked about compared and finally settled on using the soft grey green in my living room and laundry room as the wainscot and trim color.  I put the first couple of coats on in the sunroom and the green was almost too grey.  I hadn't thought about the fact that the room is filled with a variety of bright plant greens.  When we carried the pieces into the bathroom, it was suddenly surrounded by muted colors and neutrals.  It came to life.  I sighed and said to myself. "Donna, you bought the paint and you don't really have time or money to change it out now.  Besides, when we get the other colors in place, it may tone it down."  Hmmmmmm.
I had decided some time ago that the other color would be purple: a soft grey purple with just a hint of red.  I took a scrap of my tile and the delancy green chip and found my perfect purple/grey: bastille.  I brought the chip home and looked at it with the curtain and said, "That's it."  The third color is violet wing.  In the other bathroom with the wood and glass and such, it looks white.  So I thought I'd use it for the ceiling - just a hint of purple- and a few accents.
The bastille -who knew they painted french prisons purple- went on very light purple/grey but true to latex changed quickly.  It seems it has a development cycle and within a few minutes it went through a stage very akin to heliotrope.  I was literally nauseated.  But it was time to pick up my girl and then teach.  I cleaned up a bit and walked away from my pinky purple and green bathroom a little heart sick.
Yet when I finished my afternoon classes, I went back to find that it had settled down to a greyer tone.  I thought, "I will have to accessorise well, but I can live with it."  Time is of the essence.
I finished the plaster last night and have to paint before putting the trim on, so this morning I grabbed the brushes again and put the paint on the ceiling and then on the walls.  I don't remember that color in the Bastille, but I can see Marie Antoinette dying in there, perhaps by her own hand.  Again I know it will calm down after a bit and then I can accessorise.  I've stopped for a short break as I was getting dizzy, but I'm about 80 % done with the ceiling and walls.  Part of me wants to go back and just get it done.  Part of me wants to go screaming into the garden.  Maybe that's why Marie Antoinette spent so much time in the prison gardens.  But then she wasn't a very practical girl.
AND...the bastille gave the wing a little life. 

What Right!

This poem written in personal frustration after the incident at Virginia Tech is really a poem about the evil and irrational acts of terrorism.  On this anniversary of the fall of the twin towers I am posting it again.  In me it is a reminder of many things that are good and evil in our land.  

What right have you to make us feel afraid

To trap us here inside our boundaries

And make us cease to trust our fellow man?

What ghoulish power joined with you today

To make us wince at breezes in the trees

and hide indoors in day as best we can?

Did anger, hate, distraught, or helpless rage

Convert you to a mindless, thoughtless fool

Determined to a violent good bye:

Your final act upon a blood bath stage

The devils advocate or demons tool

And leave behind a land too shocked to cry?

You serve us doubt in ladles round and deep

As hearts fly to the ones we hold so dear

Imagining what we cannot believe

And draw us out from needed peaceful sleep

To reconcile the senseless things we hear

With feelings rationale cannot conceive.

DW 2007

While the acts of terrorism on September 11, 2001 were horrendous unthinkable acts, several things became positively evident.  The people of these United States did some things the terrorists did not envision.  One they banded together with a common goal against their attackers.  Second, they turned in one for a few days, to their God for help, comfort, and wisdom.  Third, they proved themselves stronger than the enemy ever imagined they were.  Of course there were more outcomes, but these really gripped my heart and made me proud of my country.  There is much to remember and reconsider on this day.

Mr. Echols, my friend

Years ago,  I knew an old man- a very nice old man. 

The first time I saw him at church, he sat by himself.  His body was thin.  His face was lined.  His eyes were mattered.  I knew nothing about him, but I had heard the rumors.  He didn’t say anything to me at that meeting that I can recall.  He probably didn’t say anything at all.  Yet, somewhere along the way, he decided I needed fresh fruit and vegetables. 

He grew them in his garden behind a run down shack at the edge of town and every week he walked across town to my house toting some offering.  I was a young mom with four children and sometimes funds were tight, so I really did appreciate the fresh strawberries, tomatoes, a head of cabbage, squash, new potatoes, apples, whatever was in season.  He obviously had a pact with the earth for what he brought me was fresh, flawless and abundant.   In the early visits, I'd accept his oblation to life and we'd stand and talk a bit on the front porch.  After a short visit, as my nervous nature began to fidget, he would excuse himself and amble off in a long stride back down the road toward his home.

He had a mucus problem with his eyes and a lot of people thought he was just gross.  They had no reluctance to say so.  But what I began to see was a sad, sweet old man who desperately wanted anyone to care about him.   He'd lived a rough thoughtless life in his younger years.  His family was estranged, the community shunned him and the church tolerated but gossiped about him.  The shanty of a house and a garden were all that were left of his 80 plus years of doing and being. 

Somewhere in those gradually lengthening visits on the porch, I learned to love him.  I relished his short, honest stories full of humility and respect for what he had only recently learned to value.  I began to have a large printed kerchief and a glass of lemonade ready for his visits.  Often I would bring out a small dish of goodies to share in exchange for the fresh produce and we would sit on the big covered porch, one on the small bench and one on the swing to visit.  I made time.  He was grateful and gracious about not staying too long, though it was obvious that he was hungry for conversation.  A few times, I invited him in but he always seemed concerned for my reputation.  He didn’t want to give people a reason to ‘talk’.

He hadn't been a good man.  He was an alcoholic who, when he drank, hated life and people and became mean.  He had lost everything to the alcohol and violence it brought on.  The bulk of his family hated him, the rest avoided him.  His wife -who he still loved- divorced him and went on with her life.  He didn’t fault her for that.  Eventually, he made a change.  Sadly it was too late to salvage anything but the small sparsely furnish shack with its garden plot and a couple of fruit trees. 

Knowing his past, people in the small town, and even in the church we both attended, avoided him.  They whispered to each other, glancing his way quickly, and seeing his recognition of their glance, looked away as quickly.  All this and more I became aware of during those weekly visits.  Years of substance abuse and neglect had not been kind to his thought processes and his stories would be riddled with long pauses as he collected his memories again to continue.  Like most aging people, he often repeated his stories.  He talked about his children with mist in his troubled eyes and then owned the separation as his fault.  In all the time I knew him, he did not speak an unkind word about anyone except himself.  In time, I relished the stories.  I assured him that he was worth loving and knowing and told him it was a shame his family could not drop their anger and fear to know the man he had finally become. 

One week, he showed up at my door with an unusually large offering.  I took his gift and invited him to come inside.  He said, “I believe I’ll just sit here if you don’t mind.” 

He was a bit late, and, with a bit of concern, I had put the lemonade back into the refrigerator, supposing he was not coming that day.  I carried away my bounty and returned from the kitchen with the cold pitcher, pouring us each a friendly, refreshing glass.  His large thin frame was spilling awkwardly off the small bench across from the swing.  He sipped quietly, slowly, as though he had something he wanted to say.  We made small talk with no stories for an unusually long time.

I can still hear his cracked, anguished voice as he mustered the courage to say, "They say I'm a danger to myself and they're going to take me to a 'home'."  We sat quietly for a long time, as if to communicate without words all the things we both were feeling.  Somehow I knew there was no reasoning that would give his soul peace about the eventuality before him.  

That was the last time I would visit with my friend.  He went home, boxed his belongings and labeled them with the names of children who would never care and shot himself in the head.

I heard the whispers.  I saw the indignant looks and wagging heads.  I cried for my friend.

I Stand Alone

I

alone

against the raging wind

and pounding rain

as piercing cold lay bare my heart

and drained my will by force again

in its onslaught found a hand

of one as beaten down as I.

We grasped each other hoping

that the little strength we both possessed

would be enough to see us through

what seemed an daunting, endless quest.

On and on

through angry gale

we stood together

gaining strength, gaining will

until our own determined stand

proved to the wind it’s futile strife.

So in that stand each gaining strength

and hope and with it force of life.

till in our own strength we could stand

while wind and rain and cold disband.

Confident,

grateful for the chance to grow

from weak to strong

we found we could let go

And each move out toward a private goal

basking in the sun and warmth

carrying the memory of the struggle in each soul.

Walking, I with head held high and heart held light

pursue a path unknown toward the night

a starless, moonless road with howling wind and rain and I,

I writhe in pain.

I am

alone

again.

DW - Written sometime in the early 1980s

Through the Darkness

Riding in the car with the occasional mirror effect created by lights passing, she watched the nothingness pass by outside her window.  She had witnessed the extreme frailty of womankind and that which often produced disgust had instead brought compassion.  She could not get the young girl clad in a cheap thin dress thrown over a bikini out of her mind.  It was a sad picture which she had seen again and again. 
She was not known for her compassion in these situations, but for her swift, stern remarks about how you just can't make a person your own unless he makes himself your own.  You can not demand or produce fidelity in another person. A man must demand and produce fidelity in himself if it is to be there and if not, you're better off with him gone.
Suddenly she was seeing the dark red shirt.  Her ex husband had walked in with it on one evening.  To her query concerning it's origin, she was told that his secretary bought it for him.  She was eternally bothered that she didn't suspect the obvious.  She remembered how the woman's demeanor had changed toward her through time.  She recalled the questions and sideways glances after the woman had a child that resembled the wrong man.  Tonight she asked herself again "Why didn't I at least ask a few more questions?"  "Why did I have to make it so easy for him?"
While inside the convenience store, the cashier had made a comment about the girl being wasted and flipping out.  The girl had just wandered out the door.  The little wretch was standing outside now, pacing, talking to herself, obviously writhing inside.  Had her attire not been so 'cheezy' she probably would have not even 'seen' the girl.
In the darkness, she shuddered at the thought and looked again in her mind at the way the girl was dressed.  She thought about her own 'invisible' days.  She was so threadbare, so serious, so busy making life happen.  She remembered flirtatious comments from men she met.  She was always shocked and would think to herself, "Why would he say that kind of thing to me. I'm a married woman."  She had no clue she was attractive and worthy.  She had no clue that there were women who reached back in spite of motherhood or marriage. 
The child in the seat behind her observed that the moon was following them.  She laughed and remembered having that thought as a child.  This same child had earlier observed that people should never say those words to other people.
 Terms like "unrefined" "backward" "red-neck" passed through her mind, yet she saw the young girl like a wounded animal needing pity, needing to be held tight and allowed to cry desperately until her wound was soothed. But how could that be done without having your own garments and even your flesh ripped to shreds.
 She saw, in the darkness passing by, another young girl in another backwoods town, who, after several times being the last of a line of riders to make it home, began to sneer and look at her in disgust.  This other little animal had become wounded, frightened and ready to strike at a moment's notice.  Why could she not see and interpret that woman-child's longing gazes toward the man who was then her husband and ask what in the world he thought he was doing?
She had been adjusting their car for the long ride home when the ruckus inside the convenience store grabbed her attention.  The cashier had come in front of the counter and was shouting words blocked by the barriers of glass.  She looked at her husband and said "That's the girl the cashier was saying was intoxicated when we were in there."  A customer was also shouting at the girl as he headed for the door in front of their car.
Her husband replied that it appeared someone would be hauled into jail before the night was over.  Then the guy burst out of the convenience store followed by the girl who was hitting him as hard as she could while screaming profanities at him.  He kicked the girl away from him as one would kick at an attacking dog, yelled his own profanities and got in the passenger side of the car. Another young woman was in the driver's seat and revved the engine, backing away as the distraught young girl screamed painful insults after them.
She felt her hand on the doorknob. She had burst into the room where this man she had been married to for half her life was planning his new life with the woman he intended to marry once he was able to shake her loose.  Her heart had raced as she announced a curse on the woman's younger son and walked out barely able to breathe while the two occupants of the room laughed and went on with their planning.  One day they would not laugh. This woman would beg forgiveness while this man would deny that the outcome was more than coincidence.
 Staring at the blackness outside her car window, she realized that she had no understanding of who the girl or the guy or even the driver of the car was.  She might have been a wanton seeker of manflesh from a local sleaze pit who had lost out to a stronger lure.  She might have been the other woman left behind when the guy realized what he was about to throw away.  She seemed like a young but worn cast off who had tried to make herself appealing enough to win back the respect and affection she had sold herself to obtain. She considered her own last ditch demeaning effort to reclaim a life that was all she knew so many years ago.
At that moment she wanted to tell the young woman they had left weeping and clenching her fists as she writhed about, that she was worth more than she could imagine.  She wanted to tell her to forget what he had taken from her and to forget the willingness with which she had given to him.  She wanted to caution her kindly to hold herself in more honor with more reserve and make any man in her future win her heart, her body, her devotion through great effort.  She wanted to assure her that she could forgive herself for ever wasting a moment of life on someone who did not cherish everything about her.
A silent tear slipped down the cheek in the darkness.  There are things that cannot be said.  There are things that will not be heard.

DW 2009