White
Towards the third trimester of pregnancy, when her body has swollen to proportions better suited to a pygmy hippo and putting on her shoes makes her feel like one of Cinderella’s Yeti siblings, a woman is suddenly struck by an overwhelming urge to overhaul her environment. Nesting, as most literature on the subject terms it, is something all animals do. However, unlike cats or dogs who simply drag your most expensive cashmere shawl into a dark corner, women either bleach the bejesus out of every nook and cranny, like my friend Tash did, take out an extension on their mortgage to add one to their house (yes Bev, I’m thinking of you), or start wheedling their husband in the middle of the night while he’s up getting Gaviscon from the bathroom cupboard that living in a rented two bedroom flat with a baby simply won’t cut it. That would be me.
So, a few months after Amber-Jane was born, we were on the hunt for a house. Convincing Julian that it was a sane thing to do wasn’t an easy task – we’re not the kind of people who are keen to spend all our disposable income fixing leaky pipes. We’re late bloomers, coming to parenthood and the property ladder at the ripe old age of 37 and 39 respectively. It’s not for lack of opportunity, we both tried the whole career thing – me in advertising, Julian with a general practice in suburbia, but there are only so many cellphones you can brand, so many swollen tonsils you can shine a light on, before you lose the will to live. And there has always been something about the picket fence and double garage dream that makes me shudder. The smidgen of gypsy in my DNA recoils at the idea of tying myself to a piece of land, the word bond is derived from bondage, afterall. If you’d told me when I met Julian that I’d be the one angling for us to buy a home of our own, I’d have laughed in your face, applied for a renewal of my maxi passport and made you give me a lift to the airport
Fast forward a decade to a heavily pregnant me. I want my own house. I want my own house so that I can decorate it. I want my own house so that I can paint it any bloody colour I like and not have to worry about how many coats of Magnolia will cover it up when I move out. I dream of pale, almost translucent, pink walls that reflect light like jewels – the nursery. I dream of Morrocan Indigo tiles, marble, and brass taps – the bathroom; of gossamer curtains billowing in the breeze – the main bedroom; of smooth shiny counter tops and six burner gas hobs – you know where. The reality my dream materialises into is a two bedroom semi with a leaking roof and a next door neighbour that makes Annie Wilkes look like a happy camper. Why neither of us noticed the black cobwebs and rotting gutters just over the wall until the day we moved in, I’ll never know? I’m convinced the estate agent practices witchcraft and I still cross myself every time I pass by her offices on Lower Main Road.
Two days after the house was transfered into our names, mildew began to appear on the ceilings. By the time we’d resigned ourselves to getting quotes to repaint the entire interior, our bathroom had crossed over to the dark side and inky stains had begun to appear in every room. Nevermind, I told Julian, trying to sound like an optimist (I’m not), it just means we get to decorate a little ahead of schedule. Before repainting, we had planned to live in the house until, through some magical process, the house told us what colour it wanted to be. Turns out the house wanted to be black. As this didn’t match my fantasy, I was forced to begin consulting decorating magazines and paint swatches in earnest. The fact that I have hundreds of swatches stashed in a box is testement to my indecision. That we eventually painted the house Dusted Moss, a soft off-white, is testement to the fact that too many colour swatches cause chromatophobia.
This abnormal fear of colour developed late. During my years as an art student, I was attracted to bold colours and big canvasses. Reds were predominant in my work, creating rich images with warm undertones. So why is it that everything I now touch turns to white? I spent two years trying to decide on the best way to update the emboia dining room table I inherited from my grandmother before painting it white. Our bed linen and bedroom curtains are white, the ones I have my eye on for the lounge will probably also be a pale neutral, some sort of off-white, a bit like the walls. Our couch is dirty white canvas, the pine coffee table is white-washed and the cane two-seater is, well, white. Unexpectadly, all this white on white makes for a rather drab and depressing envirnoment and I long to paint the wall at the end of the hallway in some intense hue. If only I had the courage to pick a bright.
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