Orange is the New Black

My builder grade fireplace. Nice enough. Boring though.

It always surprises me that heartache feels so much like....heartache. 

 But as one friend goes, another arrives. Even before my friend P left this morning, my daughter C was here. In fact both daughters are here now. 

I went to yoga for the first time in 2 or 3 weeks. I went to the supermarket for groceries. Look, I'm doing what the living do. Except things like remembering the sentence I just read or wrote.

Today, with C here, I decided I needed projects. Let's put leather conditioner on the cat-scratched sofa. Let's paint the hearth orange. Let's take all the beach glass I've gathered over the last two years and tile the fireplace with it. This is the sort of project that could go horribly wrong if left to my own devices, but C is meticulous. First there were a couple hours of research, then beach glass washing and sorting.

Then portioning out the colors so they'll be somewhat evenly distributed.

And now we've begun a sort of practice layout so we won't be just winging it when we put the morsels of glass into the thinset.

Remember the Rolling Stones song "Paint It Black"?

I see my red door and I want it painted black

No colors anymore I want them to turn black

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back

I'm taking the opposite approach. If I painted anything black it would be the end of me. 

Clouds in the Water

I sleep with my window shades only partially closed. I want that first peak at the day as I open my eyes.     I crave that instant shot of beauty.

My mother has told me a half-dozen times already how much she likes my "color scheme." My counter-top appliances are red. My kitchen walls are yellow. The afghan her sister crocheted sits on the back of my sofa, each square a blast of color that's echoed in my living room rug.

Today at the doctor's office, her eyes opened wide when the nurse gave her a rose pink paper gown to put on for her EKG. "Things used to be so drab," my mother said. "Not like this."

I savor the red wine in the crystal glass. The way the sun shines through my orange patio umbrella nearly setting it afire. The contrast of the melon in the green glass bowl.

"Oooh, gorgeous," my mother said when I showed her the plumeria cuttings the man who loves me sent from his sister's trees. "They're blooming," she said.

Things used to be so drab. Not like this.