Monday, May 28, 2012

Simply a Paint Job

My mother and I have been working to paint her bedroom the past few days. Move all the furniture, dust everything, tape the floor boards, tape around the windows, tape the ceiling, tape around the doors. Primer. Let it dry. PAINT.
We finished this afternoon around one o'clock, after a few spills on the carpet, a few spills on ourselves, and a Lyle Lovett marathon.

While the work itself was somewhat tiring, constantly bending over to load your brush, going up and down step-ladders, etc., I realized when we finished that I had spent a few days in that room bonding with my mother, and it was good. We'd laughed a lot, talked a lot, heaved and hoed a lot, and completed a house project by ourselves (with perhaps the help of Wal-Mart and Fred's). We didn't take a road trip to the mountains; we didn't spend a day at the beach; we didn't go mother-daughter shopping at the Mall of America. We just threw on some old clothes and got a little sweaty. But Reader, that's what made it a special time for me. I'm leaving for college in about two months, the last one out of the house. It's no longer the big vacations that I enjoy spending with my mother. It's the simple things. The little things. Tonight even, we went out to dinner together as a sort of last-minute celebration for finishing her room and, she said, as a thank you to me. We had a really wonderful time! We talked and laughed for over an hour as we sat and ate pizza and pasta at Painturo's. It was a perfect night. The kind of night I'll miss when I leave home, but be thankful for the memories.

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