My husband and I bought my grandparents' house about a year and a half ago. My grandparents lived here for 35 years. These two people have brought such joy and nourishment into my life that I couldn't bear to let their house go to strangers. So when Grandpa passed and Grandma had to move to an assisted living facility, we moved in. It was decorated like an octogenarian couple lived here. When our shower flooded, we had laminate wood floor put in the living room and two walls were re-textured and painted the color of our choice. The other wall was left with my grandmother's wallpaper.
About a month ago, I read something (I can't even remember what!) that inspired me to think outside the box on my art. I have a HUGE wall in my living room that is going to be textured and painted before we move...what's stopping me from having fun on it now? I first checked with the husband to make sure he could live with this. He said he didn't care.
One day a few years ago, I got off work a bit early. I piddled around some of my favorite spots for creative inspiration-a few stores on Route 66. When I came home, I still had time before picking up my boy. I turned the corner into my living room and there was that wall in all its crazy-flowered-wallpaper-glory! I tore a little piece off...then another little piece. Before I knew it, I had a big white spot on the wall. I hesitated as I thought of my husband coming home from work to see the wall torn apart but no art. I looked at the wall again and decided it was too late to turn back now.
I threw on some grungy clothes, cranked up my Pandora Pink station, spread out an old sheet and started in earnest. As I pulled off layers of the wallpaper, symbolism overcame me. This shiny, colorful, traditional wallpaper began to take the form of conventionalism, and fear, and being who everybody else wants you to be. Underneath, I found my grandfather had left the previous layer of wallpaper. This one was a tiny pink (my grandma's favorite color) pattern that instantly took me to my childhood. I was back in the days of innocence, the days when I was still whoever I wanted to be, as yet unmolded and as yet unscarred. There are places I went a little deeper taking the wallpaper off than I intended to just the blank yellowed color of the wall underneath; I thought of places where my life stripped away even the good I started with. There are places my grandpa had plastered over some hole or otherwise covered a blemish; places where I needed to fix where I had started with or fix where life gouged a bit too deeply.
I had an unfinished wall in my living room-as unfinished as my life. But now I face a wall on which to paint whatever I want. It's so much better than the blank white slate of a canvas. It's as though I can start with the little girl of unfettered potential and add the self I long to be. And because I hope to raise a child who always feels like he can do anything, my son helps when he wants.
As I listened to every song that played, it was like I was doing hard
therapy...working on my inner self as I worked on that wall. As I ripped off layers of old lady wallpaper to the soundtrack Pandora provided, I swore I smelled vanilla pipe tobacco just like my dad smoked.
When I picked up my son, we covered that wall with rainbows and blobs and whatever else! Months later, I added a huge ocean patch with a bubble in which a rose is suspended. My son helped me again with (a little) more sophisticated art than the previous time.
Every time I look at that wall, I smile. When people come to my house for the first time, they are surprised. If they know me well enough, they are not too surprised. But everyone is delighted (well, maybe with the exception of my mother-it was her parents' house) and I think a little bit jealous that they don't have a wall like this in their living room. I have had friends express a desire to paint on it themselves-they are welcome! So far, time or inhibitions have kept them from it....but I'm sure it will happen soon.
I love that we have this wall. It is a part of my life that is exactly as I want it. And it is made all the better for the memory of how it came to be!
