And Then Color

When the snow came our lives turned inward. Even if I’d trusted the car drivers, the unploughed roads were too rough for my bicycle. The sidewalks were mostly un-shovelled and slow going. We were stuck. Clearing out the common rooms in our house felt like unraveling the homemaking of the past months. We stacked chairs, couch, chest, table together, emptied the bookshelf and cabinets and unscrewed them from the walls. The plants now crowded the dark, upstairs hallway. Books piled up under my bed and marched up the stair treads. Rolled carpets and table leaves leaned together in a closet.

The work was long and often tedious. Drywall, mudding, mudding, mudding, cutting trim to fit the crooked walls, blocking up the odd gaps, caulking and caulking and painting and painting. Every morning I pulled on the same faded black t-shirt with holes in the armpits, the same canvas pants with a utility knife and pencil in the side pocket. I lost track of the days.

Today is the first of the new year. The house is still in chaos but a dank, cold wind no longer blows up through the gaps in the walls. There’s color now where there was once only contractor gray and peeling wallpaper. This isn't the decisive new beginning that a house restored to order would be but the yellow walls are a good start.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Late night edging, fell off the stool and splashed paint down the ugly front door, so now that's yellow, too.