North of Montgomery

I did a small painting project at the house recently. It was my son’s closet, which he’d vacated for the most part since graduating college and moving away three years ago. We’d started (and never fully completed) a shelving project for his Legos that are now at his apartment, on to a new home, or in a landfill. He had done most of the prep work in the closet, filling and sanding the holes left behind, so all that was left for me was to repaint the walls.

Painting is probably the only household task I consider myself proficient in. I’ve never been much of a handyman, never tried woodworking, and can keep our cars running for the most part. “Finding a guy” for all the things has been a constant source of conflict, but not as much with painting. There are certainly larger painting projects that I’m happy to outsource but I feel solid on a room at a time. My son’s closet certainly fell into the latter.

Given my experience with painting, I’ve got the necessary tools and know what I need if I don’t. I keep all our old paint cans, so I’ll always have a match. I’ve got brushes, rollers, pans, blue tape out the wazoo, and even have a couple of extension handles for higher walls. What I’ve had the longest, however, is a dropcloth.

The dropcloth we used when we painted his nursery before he was born. I can still see the blue and yellow paint we used. The lavender from his sister’s room a few years later, and remnants of the green ivy we stenciled along her ceiling. The red and black from high school football signs. The white from painting the cement blocks we used to loft her dorm room bed at college. And the outline of the shelves we just removed from his closet before the for sale sign went up in the yard.

Now the dropcloth has one last addition. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to use it again, or if I’d even want to. Regardless, it’s going with me. Maybe pass it along to one of them for a future home, maybe even to be used painting a nursery. What I won’t be able to do is get rid of it. Like life, it’s messy in places but despite the splatters and spills on the dropcloth, the memories will remain.