Dear Reader,
Tomorrow marks one year since my mother died.
In the last years of her life, she gave me two gifts that have changed the way I live.
The first was the sunporch.
Whenever she visited, she would stop there and look around. At the time, the room held little more than a porch swing. I would complain that it was either too hot or too cold to use much.
“If I had this porch, I’d live out here,” she’d say.
Eventually, I listened.
I bought furniture. I wrestled chairs and tables into place. I added lamps and baskets and little touches that made the room feel welcoming. Slowly, the porch became a place where reading wanted to happen and writing wanted to happen and life wanted to happen.
Eventually, where grieving wanted to happen.
Before she passed, every time I made an improvement, I told her.
Her first language was paint and wallpapering.
The second gift came not long before she passed.
I had spent days painting a bathroom yellow. Three coats in, I could still see through it in places. Frustrated, I told her I thought I needed another coat.
“Stop painting and start decorating,” she said.
It was exactly the right advice.
Not just for that bathroom.
For life.
There comes a point when more paint isn’t the answer. More preparation isn’t the answer. More fixing isn’t the answer.
Sometimes you have to stop trying to perfect the foundation and begin enjoying what you’ve already built.
I’ve found myself returning to that advice again and again.
The past few months have been full of decorating. The hallway. The porch. The bathroom. Lampshades. Mirrors. Art. Little corners of the house that suddenly seemed to matter.
For a while, I thought I was just nesting.
Now I think something else was happening.
A bouquet is not enough to express my grief.
It’s taking a whole house to do that.
Yours in color, wallpaper, and porches worth sitting on,
Drema
dremadrudge.com 