For days we’ve prepped the house, all for this moment.  When the scrapers go back in the pocket.  Brushes are opened and old bristles slapped against calloused palms.  Paint arrives in five gallon buckets, wearing seat belts, in the backseat of the rented Dodge Avenger.   A little paint is poured in a cut bucket.  Everything has been for this, a new color on the boards.  Like a thirsty man eating ice cream.

I open all the colors at once like it’s Christmas morning.  Nathan paints a wall of the porch while I peel dried paint from last weeks buckets.  I roll a window in the trim color and hand it to Knox.  Daniel finishes priming the back and takes the accent color of the door.  I cut in windows.  We need to see it.  We are no longer attacking the state of this house, we are giving it the healing.

The neighbors who walk their dogs this time of day stop and check it out.  The passing bums raise an eyebrow.  Other service vans and trucks, probably painters even, pass slowly and see how all the fuss will result.  I’m as self conscious of the work as when first revealing a new song.  The difference is striking.  These colors are deliberate, no doubt.  Will they work?  The vehement yellow will not die easily.  But I think it’s going to pull together.

Oh come on!!