Tuesday, February 17, 2004
The Agony and the Ecstacy and the Rambling Blather
From last Thursday night:
We painted the ceiling. It would be fair to say that we just painted the ceiling - not only becaused it just now happened, but after all, it’s merely a ceiling, usually the least sexy part of the whole room (unless you’re doing some weird rococco or edwardian thing) (which we’re not). The walls will eventually be vibrant with two strong hues defining distinct functional areas of the room - but the ceiling will remain white, to open the space and to generate a bit more light. So it’s hardly a major visual impact, what we’ve done so far. The ceiling was white before, and it’s still white now. The walls have yet to be painted; some haven’t even been properly cleaned. There’s very liitle to show for our work. It’s just the ceiling, after all.
But then again:
that whole ceiling is eight feet off the ground and upside-down. It’s not like it’s a grueling physical challenge to paint it, but ceilings are inconvenient. We had to edge by hand, and of course the entire room had to be tarped. I do not blush to admit that I broke a decent sweat while rolling on that second coat. So ceiling-painting is a noteworthy accomplishment from a purely mechanical standpoint.
And then there’s the color. Yes, I said it was white before and it’s white now, but that’s really not enough information. As any state-certified pigmentologist will tell you, there are more than 70 billion different shades of white. The one with which we started is the color of corpse teeth. On the original bucket of paint that we dug out of the landlady’s garage, it even says, “Corpse-Tooth White.” Okay, I don’t recall what the bucket actually says, but this much is true: when we started our incremental repaint-the-apartment-before-hell-freezes-over program, we did go and find a bucket of the orginal paint used all over this apartment and then went to a paint store to compare a sample of that paint against a mind-numbing profusion of other almost identical white chips. And sure, my mind is easily numbed (aah, there it goes), but our original white, compared to the other chips of paint on display, really was distinctive. It looked dirty, like dustbunnies and cobwebs had been stirred into the mix. The white of a public restroom that will never truly be clean again. The white of bread fed yesterday to pigeons. It was depressing. And then, also, it hadn’t been repainted for at least fifteen years - not since before we moved in. We know because the last tenants had a kid who put glowing star stickers on her ceiling and we only recently took them down (they’d stopped working). So it was old, ugly paint we had on all the walls and the ceiling of this room. But now the ceiling is a different white, a slightly ruddier color, more like a clotted cream or a lightly blushing aioli, a warm color, rich, thickly applied. Now that it’s dry I can see the old color on the walls, wan and feeble, leeching the life out of every other color and object on which it casts its pall. The new ceiling color is already making a huge difference. It may not be an obvious change, but it’s a significant one - and that’s the kind of change it’s the most fun to make.
And of course, a ceiling is never really “just” a ceiling anyway. It’s the roof over your head, the safety of the abode. When the storms rage and the winds blow (as they are doing now), you can look up to your ceiling and take solace in dry, warm, comfortable security. It’s your protector, your shelterer. Walls keep out the world but ceilings keep out the heavens. They make the room a retreat, a sanctum. Even moderninsts who use glass or open space to explode our traditional notions of the wall, almost never take such liberties with ceilings. We need ceilings, more than we think. Without them, freedom would be too terrible and overwhelming. Our frailties would be exposed and exploited. This is the attraction of porches and gazebos - even without walls around us, we feel safe under a ceiling or roof. Walls without a roof feel confining, cloistered, hidden and isolated; but a roof without walls gives us power in public, a sheltered social strength. Ceilings are important. Ceilings are good. Painting one, even just painting it white, is an act fraught with symbolism, purifying our built environment, further distinguishing human space from the untamed wilderness, the secular from the sacred, the shelter from the storm. So my newly painted ceiling is a good bit more meaningful than it might seem to be at a cursory glance. It may not look too impressive to you, but truly, it is a reiteration of mankind’s wresting of safe haven from the violent elements by dint of synthetic action - an act of promethian significance. Plus, the work was a bit physically taxing, and the new color makes a much bigger difference than you might think.
I can’t wait to see what kind of crap I come up with when I paint the walls. I’ll be breathing even more fumes then, so I should be pretty unintelligible.
Coda: The room is finished. I’ll have a weekend recap shortly with the lurid details. So, what I guess I’m saying is, I’ve got nothing interesting to say but that never stopped me before - especially not when I have such a nicely painted room in which to say it. Chuckles out.
