BUBBLE GUM HOUSE

"Create with the heart, build with the mind..." -Criss Jami

One fall, I was incredibly bored. It was a posting season, and I was left to my own devices. The kids were little. We’d made Christmas cards, with  real twigs and leaves, slapped paint footprints on  curtain material. Had trouble cleaning off their feet. I made so much fruitcake, that probably no one would eat.  I ran out of freezer space. 

It was time for a new project.  We were living back east . Big house. Lots of walls. Lots of ceilings. I’d been scouring DIY magazines on how to freshen up the  house. I got a rip roaring idea from  watching a talk show. 

PAINT. Be creative with paint. And lots of it. “Don’t be afraid to experiment” said the paint experts.  “Okeedokee,”  I thought.

So I plopped the kids into the car and we toodled down to the paint store. I bought them each a small paint brush.

My good friend, the  paint lady, was very helpful .She said I had “artistic flare”, and I should “run with it”. The newest thing was to  sponge  all sorts of colours on the walls.

I came home with cans and cans of pink paint, a can of robin’s egg blue, a can of bright green, wallpaper, wisteria stensils, big painting sponges  and stir sticks. I gave the kids a couple of those to go with their paint brushes.

Most of the rooms I had already covered up. I started with the music room. I  painted it bubble gum pink. Had trouble with the corners and the top edges. Got some paint on the ceiling. Didn’t have any painters’ tape. So instead I took a roller brush and a long handle and smacked pick swishes all over the ceiling. Looked like pink feathers.

In the kitchen I slathered water on striped wallpaper. Then smooshed the pieces  against the wall. Only half way, with  a big border. Then  sponge painted the top half, over old paint.  I chose pink and green. It looked kind of festive. 

The kids wanted to sponge paint. I gave them  newspaper to paint on. the wall. They got pink paint everywhere. Then the cats walked thru it. Paddy pink paw prints all thru the kitchen.

I made the computer room bright, robin’s egg blue, with stencils of  and more blue swishes on the ceiling. Another room ,  I painted  pink bubble gum with  stencils of purple wisteria all along the top edges near the ceiling. Well, I tried. I couldn’t quite reach, so they were all sort of  crooked. So I just added more wisteria and hoped no one would notice. Then I swished pink on the ceiling cause I  was having way too much fun.

The kids just watched, at this point, and pointed if I missed a spot.

Systematically, I worked my way through the house. It took me 10 days. I ran out of pink paint twice and  had to go get more.  My friend from the paint store, came over to have a look. She was very diplomatic.

She was intensely interested in the  wisteria room with the pink swishes. 

She  kind of stopped and stared at my handiwork in the kitchen.  “Creative,” she warbled “ very creative. And you did this all yourself?”

She marveled at the striped wallpaper. A little crooked but not too bad. Gave the eating area a jaunty look.

In the dining room and music room she  made  “Ohhhhs and Ahhh’s” at the bubblegum world I created. “And no tape whatsoever?” she said “None? Well, well well”

We found pink paint dried on the grand piano. So we spent the afternoon carefully  scraping it off.  Guess I didn’t quite cover the piano at the time.

When she left and I closed the door, I saw her doubled over at her car. I thought, at first, something was wrong.  But no.

She was just laughing so hard she was shrieking. 

The kids liked the bubblegum  house. I let them draw on one of the pink walls.

We had to live in it for a little while, then we were going to sell the house and move. Got student pro painters to come out and give an estimate. They craned their heads around to look at the wisteria rambling down the wall. 

I wondered if they laughed themselves silly as well. It was pretty funny.

 They covered  the entire house in  white paint. Covered up the  wisteria., the blue, the green and  all that bubble gum  paint.  All those wonderful swishes disappeared like they never existed.

I never painted again……more’s the pity, cause when I  go by the paint store I get this awful  hankering………

Photographs 2022

 

GRAFFITI SKIES

"I thank you, God, for this most amazing day, for the dream of sky, and for everything which is natural, which is yes...." - E.E. Cummings (excerpt)

We have this window on the hill. I can see sky.

Brings it close in  early morning.

Paints  the sky at night. 

The mountain range  is like an old friend. 

"I believe if one always looked at the sky, one would end up with wings..." -Gustave Flaubert

I like when it's almost dark. When the quiet comes, and the crickets sing.

 They talk in the dark about their day. 

And the mountains quietly answer with  deep rumbling.

Like giants they rise out of the dark, in the night, in the shadows.

"Once you have tasted the taste of sky, you will forever look up..." -Leonardo da Vinci

The mountain wears pink chiffon  most summer nights.

In winter it throws on a housecoat that has seen better days.

"Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It's the time of day when it looks like the sky has been painted by a graffiti artist. ..." 

                                                       -Mia Kirshner

Created by the best Graffiti Artist of all.......

"Look, up at the sky.There is a light, there is a beauty up there,that no shadow can touch..." 

                                   -J. R.R. Tolkien

Photographs 2022  Campbell River, B.C. and Mt. Washington Range.

 

ON THOSE STEPS

"There's something about sitting alone in the dark that reminds you of how big the world really is..." 

-Kami Garcia

If those steps could talk.  Not forgotten. Just far away. Hopefully those steps will remember us……... 

I was told my grandmother liked to pick Roses of Sharon on hot August days. She’d toss them into canning jars filled with water, and my mother placed them around the old house. 

My grandmother was blind by this time, I heard. Totally blind. But she could feel the flowers. Trace their petals.

She liked to sit on the steps before sunset. They all stayed long after, into the night when fireflies twinkled.

My mother said the fireflies stopped coming years later.  But there was a year they danced for them .  

My mother  loved those late summer nights on the steps. When there would be a chill and she’d have to get blankets for everyone. And hot tea all round.

The year of the fireflies, was the year ivy dripped like an umbrella, over the windows. My father always meant to cut it down. He never did. Long after he died, years later, my mother finally had it cut down. We missed it.  Like the fireflies.

On those steps, they sat and talked of the day.   My Parents liked to pull the old radio to the open door, and crank it up to hear music.

They’d sit on the cement steps,  tapping their toes.  Talking about this and that. Or that and this. 

My grandfather, apparently, was fond of talking about the farm days.  My mother and grandmother discussed canning recipes. My father  smoked. Sometimes the dog sat next to him and he’d say “ Good dog. Good boy…”

If those steps could talk, they would have spoken of wise and wonderful things.  

Some nights, my parents  brought  out the rocking chair,  a small chair, and  blankets for my grandparents.

My grandmother loved to be bundled up , in the old red maple rocking chair, at the bottom of the stairs. My mother’s  dog cradled at her feet. She couldn’t see him, but she’d touch him and whisper “Good dog. Good boy….” 

My father sometimes read to her, sometimes with a flashlight,depending on how dark it got.   My grandfather sat near her, instead of on the steps. He’d hold her hand in his and smoke his pipe into the night. 

At one point, my father tried to fry an egg on the steps. It ended up being a gooey mess. Everyone laughed. The dog cleaned it up. “Good dog. Good boy…” my mother said to him.

I don’t think those steps realized  how important they were. To listen to stories. To hear  crickets sing with the fireflies. To be together.

My mother said, in later years, how they liked to just sit  in silence. They’d watch my  father try to catch fireflies.

Those days now gone. The steps belong to someone else. I hope in the expanse of their lifetime, they take the time ….. 

On those steps. Those lovely gentle  steps. Maybe the fireflies will return....  

Photographs 2022