The happiness of painting walls, really

How often in life does a person get to feel euphoria? Today this is me, paint brush in hand, circling my one-storey Japanese-style house dabbing at the dinged-up trim. At the moment, I’m sitting on the four-foot border of river rock beneath the eaves, aware of the lumpy stones under my rear. I’m smartening up the low hatch door to the crawlspace with beige paint. Urk, there are a number of spider egg sacs hidden in corners. I pause to do a better clearing of my general vicinity with a cloth. The white sacs don’t wipe away easily. Well, live in the country and you get spiders.

It looks like I skipped maintenance on the door sill this area last year, unlike the windows by the front door. A really good painter might have washed this area with soap and water, dried it with a rag and come back another day.

Apparently I am not that person. A damp cloth, a drying rag and twenty minutes evaporation time while I did other trim, is all this got.

The forecast is for rain tomorrow. This is my last chance at paint for the season.

It’s a perfect end of September morning, sunny, warm without being hot. Kira is sprawled out on the gravel driveway, twitching in her sleep. She’s a big Golden Doodle with curls that pick up burs like Velcro. Behind her, by the low stone wall, the cedar has upright cones the size of a baby fingernail that have ripened to a rusty colour.

It’s the season of shutting down, though three ground cover red roses remain stubbornly in bloom. A scattering of volunteer autumn crocus came out in a purple rush last week in one bed and miniature cyclamen are poking up pink through the big-root geranium that’s taken over a big area around my Eddie’s White Wonder dogwoods.

An increasing number of cyclamen are coming up white over the years; an example of a sport in plants I find endearing. Look what can happen in only fifteen years in a garden.

Behind me, a flicker whistles loudly. Paint brush in hand, I turn to see the North Star dogwood shaking. The flicker must be pecking at the red drupes this variety produces in fall. Take the seeds and be happy, I think. I’m very fond of these large woodpecker relatives. A couple of days ago, one started banging on the wood stove chimney. At that point, I walked out into the garden and reprimanded the rascal. Flickers seem inordinately delighted by the racket they can make with their beaks on metal.

Credit

Thousands wouldn’t be pleased with painting chores on a day like this. It amuses me that I am. This is fiddly touch-up work, nothing hard about it, the last bit I’m going to do before winter. I’ve already done the entire deck and taken care of any scrapes or marks on the siding, at least those I can reach. After today, the beige paint will rejoin the other cans in the crawl space and the clean brush will get returned to the shed. I’ve finished the other painting chores on my list, just not this colour.

It also gives me pleasure that the paint I’m using is really high quality. It’s old and there was just a bit left in the bottom of the can, however it stirred up quickly and covers really well. Even with my head over the paint can, this has only a mild chalky smell, unlike the stink of the oil paints I grew up with.

The inch-wide brush natural bristle brush I’m wielding is exactly the right size. It’s at least ten years old but it’s been taken care of, so it’s in perfect shape. Good equipment makes things so much easier.  

Is this sense of real enjoyment I feel about reclaiming my power? As a teenager, and into my twenties, I did an enormous amount of painting on fishboats and houses. When I married Garney, my second husband, he took over almost all the painting. I must have continued to do some, I think now, as the paint-spattered shirt and jeans I’m wearing today are ancient. “Don’t you worry about it,” was Garney’s mantra as he held up one big work-worn hand to warn me away from painting. I think it was one of the ways he had of giving, of being a man, stepping up and taking care of things. Garney gave me time. I used his gift to write, garden, cook, there was always a full basket of jobs waiting for me.

As there are now, except after his death, I’m the only one left standing.

I extend my thanks into the aether to Garney for the care he took in building our house. The piece of trim I just finished painting, around the electrical outlet for the generator, was chamfered. Nicely done, I tell him.

As I paint my way around windows I’d cleaned earlier, pausing for a few swipes at marks on vertical trim, I see, oh joy, the higher windows that require me to pull out a ladder to reach are filthy. The sills are coated with dust, fir needles, and an amazing collection of insect wings. Who are these creatures donating their body-parts to science? Step right on by, I tell myself. Not today.

Did I miss painting? Maybe the sense of competency I felt. At first, after Garney died, all I intended was to keep the house looking smart. He and I were in agreement; small is beautiful and beautiful means close to immaculate. I try to temper this with the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, the esthetic of accepting impermanence and imperfection, embracing entropy. Like encouraging aromatic big-root geraniums to sprawl as a ground cover instead of trying for an English country garden. I’ve sworn off the latter.

Maybe it’s a funny thing to use as a standard, but I used to think, What would Garney think if he walked in the front gate now? Would he be telling me, “Looking good”? At this point, I do touch-ups and bigger jobs like the deck for myself; I want to look at the place and smile.

Now, after my clean-up is done, I circle my house, peer at the areas of touch-up and think, Ah, much better. A person gets an immediate visual hit from paint. Not only did I have a good time, my kingdom is restored to as close to beauty as it’s going to get today.

I blow a kiss to my garden, which has had some fall tidy up and needs more. The daylilies in particular look ratty and the St John’s wort Hidcote hedge needs cutting back. Another time.

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Thanks for spending time with me, friends. What are you up to in this gentle season of shutting down? Something fun?