Walls, by Ray S

It was a grey March morning in 2007, the view looking south through my dining room window was one of frozen earth and the black remains of last summer’s garden. The thought came to me in an instant. “No, I can’t do this again.” “This” was in reference to the task of planting a new garden, of battling weeds, and tending a too-large lawn. Then too, our little 1940’s spec-ranch style house had suddenly become too much house of one ageing widower.

After engaging the service of a good family friend and realtor, the end result was a sale that required new owner occupancy by April first. “Goodbye” to forty-some years of suburbia and relocation to a small ground-level apartment, replete with sufficient essential facilities and surrounded by all white painted interior walls. It was all such a welcome no brainer not to concern oneself with color, anything works with white and, besides, this was the beginning of a new, colorful life.

The new life lasted until the bank chose to pursue the condo’s owner for nonpayment of the bank’s loan. So goes the “white walls.” And the search for more walls to hang my art stuff, memorabilia, and toothbrush. With the miraculous touch on the computer apparatus my “darling daughter” phoned me to say she had found a possible new home for the homeless and aged Pater.

Another phone call arranged a meeting with the owner of a rental condo near Washington Park; all of this having been discovered by daughter while browsing the internet and finding the listing on “Craig’s List.”

Here’s the kicker; daughter and I met the owner’s representative at the prearranged hour. I noted that the front door key and lock didn’t like each other, but it finally unlocked revealing an apartment consisting of required living spaces, all six of them including a kitchen and a bathroom replete with claw foot bath tub, and each room sported a different color on their respective walls.

Ever since that day it has been one colorful day after another within my painter’s “Somewhere over the Rainbow” palette walls.

© 24 January 2017 

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