The other day I told someone that I like to mourn things before they are dead. It’s a phrase I’ve been throwing around in my head, a bouncing tennis ball of thought. Mostly it came about when halfway through the last season of The Wire, I decided to look up the Wikipedia entries on each remaining episode, thus ruining all the upcoming major plot points for myself. And then, after three steady days of marathoning Seasons three to (half of) five in as many days, I felt a kind of repelling force emanate from the DVD player. I gave the living room a wide berth. It was already over for me.
I’m watching the last episodes now, but dragging each out to several hours with so many breaks in between. That’s right, I am procrastinating at television.
This morning I woke up at 5am, in a bedroom that smelled like Deep Heat. I had slathered it on my arms in the middle of the night, because my joints ached from carrying a bundle of cardboard boxes from Preston to Reservoir (via walking and public transportation). The boxes have the word “BOX” on them in large type on a wide orange stripe and they remind me of vintage laundry detergent boxes. Right now I have six boxes stacked neatly in my closet, filled with my books and clothes and essays and knick knacks. I have made lists, and wielded a tape gun. I am trying to make my room as bare as it can be, but small things pop up everywhere.
My meagre art supplies are strewn all over the carpet. An early wake up call saw me beginning a craft project: decoupaged postcards as thank you’s for some choice friends and professors. They look so pleasing lined up to dry against the bottom shelf of my bookcase. I can only hope that the recipients see the elements as not being arbitrarily chosen, that each has a theme, however faintly infused by my thoughts of them, and our relationship to one another.
The original idea was to render small simple pictures in paint on the canvas panels. Foolishly and blindly, I purchased non water soluble oil paints, which – did you know? – takes forever and an age to dry. ALSO, I am rubbish at painting.
At about 1 o’clock, after a lengthy and awesome four-way chat with three of my very good friends (all of us in different countries, save for the two in the UK but in different cities), I decided to finally shower and when I finished I didn’t much feel like getting dressed. And so out comes the beach towel, spread out over my carpet as I decide to have a go decorating some teacups I had already previously painted.
Needless to say, I botched it. A, this one was for you, and I am sorry.
I go for broke and cover the entire canvas with what’s left on my palette. A lot of blues, and purples from the red and white I had mixed for some pink. A little butter yellow from what’s on the canvas. Whatever the teacups were meant to look like were soon steadily covered over. And just as a reminder, the whole time while I was doing this, I was not wearing anything save for a towel turban around my wet hair.
The canvas panels are 4 inches by 6 inches, and as I held it up on the fingertips of my left hand, painting over the blank spots, the whole thing tips over and lands on my thigh, brushing over my right nipple on its way down. I do that jam-side-down thing where you catch it just after it’s landed – not quick enough. On my way to the bathroom, the imprint presses onto my other thigh. It’s a comical disaster.
Hot water does nothing, and the colours smear together, this artistic bruise – blue and purple, blue and purple. A stack of cotton pads and nail polish remover (so useful) does little, but the colour becomes more faint. A colour wash. In the shower, looking at this holy mess on my hands and my thighs, small lashes on my stomach, my knees, my chest and I cannot help but laugh. Who do I tell this to? Is this ridiculous enough to be a secret? Is this too embarrassing to blog about (no, but this sentence should have been)? Well, 2012 means never having to say you’re sorry, right?
The four-way chat is still going when I come back from the bathroom and dry off. A new friend (another country) comes on. I tell them almost immediately. We all have a good laugh, and some of us get creative on Google.
There is lots of talk of a meet up in London in June. At least four of us – possibly the largest concentration we’ll be able to achieve in a while with all our collective globetrotting. I am so excited to see my friends again. I make a mental note to get another canvas panel and give away the oil paints. I make a mental note to call some shipping companies on Monday.
I have one foot out of the door, and this is the happiest mourning I’ve ever done. It worries me. My stretch marks flash white on the smear of blue and purple. These two months will fly by and I’m not quite sure what that will mean, in the end.
