I hate the color

The light blue, by daylight

Do you remember my waxing lyric about the color (Crystal) I had chosen for the other room out in the petite maison? Something to do with it being a complementary color for orange and yellow ocher, the colors of the other room and the house as seen from the French doors? Something else about it being like the color of twilight and something about snow-capped mountains?

Well, not that it isn't a nice color (it is), but twilight is better outside. So are snow-capped mountains.

The first brush strokes cutting-in left me a little cold.

It's always that way. You know that. Keep going and see once the wall is all painted. It always looks better then.

"OK," I said to myself, and pressed on, moving onto the walls with the very most cutting-in possible equals time eventually wasted in the event that I still didn't like it, but I was getting tired and not thinking beyond, "Finish... finish... finish... you can finish tonight... it looks like my favorite color when I was little, sort of a cross between periwinkle and cornflower blue from the box of Crayolas... remember how wonderful it was to open a new box of crayons?"

Yeah. And then sharpening them. Remember how you won that coloring contest when you were like, what? Five? And they disqualified you because you didn't go out of the lines once and they didn't believe you did it yourself? The use of color might have been a little maturely subtle, too.

"Yeah. I think Mom told them off, but they refused to change their minds. I decided that meant I'd really won, and probably would have with the older kids, too."

And your bathing suit. The one with the daisies. Where were they? At the hip? It was the sort of the same color. How old were you then?

"Something like that. Maybe it was the shoulder. I loved that bathing suit. Mom said it was 'my color'. I don't know, maybe 6? I can't remember if that one was before the navy blue one with red trim, but I do remember the red and white striped one I had when I made a BM in it by accident and Grandma had to change me. Where on earth were we that day? I was 2, and I was so embarrassed by what I had done."

Amazing the things we remember. It's OK. Kids do that.

"No shit." We laughed riotously together, myself and I.

You know, those edges of plaster that stay white along the edge of blue, I'm remembering something else --

"The plaster hand mold from kindergarden. It looks exactly like that plaster hand mold from kindergarden. I used the 'boy' color. I don't know if I can be happy in a room that looks just like the plaster hand mold I made in kindergarden, only very slightly more gray-violet."

"Salut. Comment ça va?" My husband was home and joining the conversation.

"Ca va, mais je ne sais pas --" He was waiting for something to be wrong; there was plenty of that, but the color was on my mind. "Je ne sais pas si j'aime cette couleur finalement."

"Quelle couleur?", he started to ask. I shot him a withering look. He looked around him, "Oh. Je n'avais pas vu. Bon, c'est pas si mal. Peut-être ça peut-être un peu plus marqué." He could see that it should have more punch. Myself joined me in nodding in agreement with him.

"Faut voir par la lumière de jour, je suppose, mais je ne sais pas," I shrugged and looked back at the powdery blue that would look a lot better on a VW Bug. "Je peux toujours la changer." Not that I wanted to paint the blue walls again.

I wanted to be done.

Now, I have seen by the light of day, and this isn't working for me, only I can't make up my mind. Maybe I'll just paint the whole thing Marble for now, the sneaker and sailcloth color of the big wall and ceiling, and make up my mind later, when I have my mind.


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