The painter said “That’s red alright! Did you know it was going to be this red?!!”
Well I did it. I painted my living room a burnt pumpkin red this week.
But I have to tell you, when I pried open the lid and looked at that Navaho Red I thought I’d lost my mind. It looked like a cross between catsup splashed on the side of a Happy Meal and a Red Cross blood-sorting center. The color was so saturated with pigment it screamed “freedom!” and “sexy!” and “crazy!” It was that last word that caught in my throat.
I looked at the staid cream wall. It was so traditional and non-committal in its not really white, not really brown kind of way. My sister, my mother and my mother-in-law all thought my cream living room was a sign that I had matured. What in the @#$& was I thinking? Cream is safe. Red is not safe.
My critical self went into hyper-drive. “You’re a widow! You’re alone now! Your son’s not even here to protect you anymore, remember? And you’re going to paint your living room red? Really?!” My mother rose from the grave and joined in. “What kind of widow paints her living room red? What will people think? Did I raise you like this? You might as well put a sign in the front yard.”
Then the painter arrived to help. “Wow!” he said, his jaw dropping as he peered into the first gallon. “That’s red, that’s really red. Did you know it was going to be that red?! I’ll have to cover this whole room in tarps because I mean, well, you can see it for yourself there, that’s red!” As he unfolded tarp after tarp he kept whistling softly and whispering, “That’s red, that’s red, oh yeah, that’s really red.”
I was ready to cry. (Oh, that’s not really what was happening!) What was really happening was I was getting ready to scream! And THAT scared me.
This guttural, throaty, primordial scream was making its way up my esophagus from deep inside my bowels. I had met it once before in the parking garage at the hospital after I’d followed the ambulance there when he had his second stroke and I knew he probably wouldn’t survive it. But, I didn’t scream because of that. I screamed because somehow I’d lost my cell phone and couldn’t call the high school to reach our son. I’d looked everywhere and couldn’t find it. I was panic-stricken. I didn’t want to make the second-hardest call of my life in public. I needed to make that call in my own car, in private, and I couldn’t find my *#&@ phone. I didn’t mean to scream. It just happened. But, the thing was, it kept happening, until I almost passed out. And, it didn’t sound like me. I might as well have been naked and swinging on a vine in the parking garage. The security guard came over, asked for my number (I think he’d met screaming women in the garage before, probably naked ones, too, actually) and my phone started ringing in the trunk.
The memory of that day was coming as quickly as the scream itself so I ran to the kitchen and clamped a towel over my mouth. But this time was different. I was in control this time and I stopped my primordial scream in its tracks. “Get a grip girlfriend! No one is dying! Dang! DANG! You’re painting the living room RED because you LOVE RED, remember?” And then I collapsed in laughter. (Well, sort of. I did that thing you do when you save yourself from screaming or crying that sort of resembles laughter.)
After throwing back a stiff swig of cappuccino, I walked back in that living room, picked up the roller, swirled its virgin white fluff into that deep red pigment and spelled out my initials, floor to ceiling, on the wall. The minute that gorgeous red “DM” starred back at me, I felt an energy surge I hadn’t felt in years. (And no, it wasn’t a hot flash. I don’t have that many hormones left.)
My Navaho Red wall walked all over that tired, mousy cream. My eyes danced–my heart danced—my body danced! I slid my old Anita Baker “Look of Love” CD into the stereo and cranked her up. Now that woman can sing… and this woman is going to sit by the fire tonight, enveloped by her own beauty and energy, thanks to a couple of Navaho Red paint cans.
