Lighten Up

Lest I give the impression that all of my hours alone were spent in the dulldrums, I want to talk about something I did to our home that would have started an argument when Al was alive. He died in August and the following summer I decided that I'd had enough of the dark wall panelling in our upstairs bathroom. The house is a rustic contemporary with skylights and many windows, and we had fallen in love with all of the light that flooded every room. But he had decided that the wood in the master bath needed refinishing and, against my wishes, had it stained brown. I was bothered by the way it absorbed the light streaming down from the two skylights, but agreed that at least the wood was protected from the shower and bath steam. So I lived with it.

The June after he died, once school was over, I bought a gallon of white pickling formula and tore up a pile of Al's old tee shirts and went to work. He wouldn't have minded my changing the walls; in fact he would probably have liked the results. But the slowness of my process would have driven him crazy. He liked things done quickly and efficiently, and he wasn't exactly a do-it-yourselfer.

All summer and into the fall I lovingly and meditatively rubbed pickling fluid into the wood, plank by plank, and inch by inch. Each board was a revelation, the way the grain stood out from the background and picked up a subtle sheen. I wouldn't have rushed through that job for anything, and it felt like a luxury not to be forced. The physical act of rubbing the wood was a great comfort, bringing me close once again to my late father who used to make craftsman-level changes to our rowhouse in northeast Philadelphia. As the younger of two daughters, I sometimes played "the son," handing him his tools and quietly keeping him company as he worked. That comfortable male compatibility bloomed in me as I reworked the wood in my own home.

And there was something about slowing the work in progress that I enjoyed. I liked seeing how every lightened plank added to the effects in the room. I liked comparing its look in the daytime to that of night. I liked too the anticipation of the next unveiling and knowing I could wait. In fact I liked to wait.

And I liked the tiredness in my arms from pressing the whitening into the wood, following the grain. I liked stopping when that exercise felt like enough. Finally I was taking care of myself and recognizing my own rhythms.

I admit it. There was even a part of me that liked doing something in a way that Al would have hated. He would not have kept his feelings to himself. In the palpable absence of his critical voice--not my favorite of his voices--I felt liberated.

The wall project stayed unfinished from June to November until the upcoming Thanksgiving, which I held at my house, pushed me to lighten the final plank. The result was glorious.