Ready to botch things up- what goes on in my thoughts and body while I paint.

July 11 The de-gluer I had put on ‘mezzanine’ took the paint off in different layers and I am heartened it is better. Before it was over painted. It had had a good moment way back when before now. My shoulders hunch. My mouth is set at the thought. Now the surface is open again and I flip it onto the table. Freedom back in my arms. I repaint the stairs lightly in blue. Keep it light. The railings are too high, but the green is good. I feel my lower back relax. Getting some of those rose tones again, and some white in the ceiling. It's good. My stomach, and below it feel bottomless. In a good way. I eye the far wall- it’s still too close. How can I adjust that? I push the ceiling back, and the gable gets flatter. Is it the wrong angle? I am unsettled. The angle needs to return. My elementary school classmate and doyenne Kelly Taylor’s upper middle class house (it had a powder room in the seventies) and Anselm Kiefer’s attic meet in my mind.

I squint. The rose is still there, that white needs to tone down, a bit of ochre on the stairs to give them solidity, but not too much, so they still float, ooh, but that side aisle is wonky. Use the right colour when you fix it, I coach myself, or you will get side tracked. Maybe the stairs were better ghostly, but the tone was too dark. Damn the ochre has to go. It's not a bloody rainbow. My hand aches a little. I am tired. Time for a cup of tea. I have come back to it after many days. A quiet in September is settling in. I scratch at what remains on my palette. Quite dried up, but the white still lives. The corridor is good, more white right to the back window and some on the wall, plus some sap green. The balustrade looks somewhat attached to the floor, the corner is hard to make sharp. I put a bit of dark at the foot, then the wall goes wonky. Cobalt blue verticals upright it. The paint does not seem to want to stick to my brush. The magenta stairs need to be that blue green. I centre them better and add ochre where the foot goes. The face outward is now blue. I have lost track of the colours from before…. . Below the floor the lower walls recede. Oh, they are too short. Now off kilter. Sam told me about her daughter today, that she has disordered eating. I had just mentioned how I was doing personal boundary exercises with my child who suffers in a similar way. I rage, what is being put upon our girls? Oh, yeah, also Jane at work told me about her daughter….is it fashionable? It is, but us moms talking about it feels more helpful. We are not giving it shock and awe. The truth is sad and too common. Jane shared her challenges as a teen; her mom was critical of her body. Things like this run in the family. That sank into me, as I take in Jane's muscular body and recall how much physical appearance had mattered in my family. I am very grateful of her bravery to talk of this which feels so shameful. There is a lot of green now. I keep using the same brush, enjoying the grab and give, but different colours are needed. White on the one upper vault, on the side windows, and at the bottom is ok. I jiggle a bit. I yawn fiercely several times. It was a long day. Now I am here and am happy, but too tired. Typical. The stairs are angling up weirdly. I block them in with the green. Bring in white to take down the sides. Now it is ok. They are more integrated. I wanted them to float, but this is better. They zig up convincingly. I won’t be on them but something will be. They are perfect, if I can keep the background behaving. My brush feels careless at times, dangerous. Ready to botch things up. The fun is irresistible, but on the whole not worth it, and I have to keep the galloping to small doses. My body tingles at resisting. But any thoughts of following a less precise path feels like mud in my head. I look again, the whole thing is too green now. Hah. I scrub at the hardened acid yellow on my plastic palette. It gives way and now it leads me to the furthest back corridor. It may need a wall to be convincing enough. Not another wall! My shoulders hunch. There is an open basement door to the left, and the outdoors can be seen, without a horizon. Ahhh. My eyes are itchy. I rub them, making it worse. Probably a bit of paint on my fingers.