image: lionheartherbs

Impossibly blue.  Blue that runs in rivulets, coursing from east to west in a great splash of vibrancy that covers every pin-prick, every divot, every crease in the old, chipped, and here and there, crumbling plaster walls.  The blue bleeds into the carpet where the walls touch the floor and seeps into the dirty, dusty old fibers like the coursing in of the tide until it reaches where I stand and begins to paint my toes, creeping up.

I’m very curious.  What will this blue do?  I have no idea where it will stop.  Will it mingle with the blood in my veins that give hints of bluish lines under the skin?  I’m not sure I want to change all of my tint.  What if it covers so well that those varicose vein spots of dark blue spread and cover up the rest of my skin color?  I am breathless.  I gulp.  I’ll be a walking Blue Woman.

How do they breathe?  How will I catch and hold to life if all my pores are mucked tight in slime that shines so bright I’ve become flashing neon?  Why, they could paint adverts on me and make a dime perhaps.

I’m struck suddenly with a worse scenario that grabs tighter at my lungs and leaves me deep sucking for air.  I might just blend into the walls and carpet and sky and vast eternity where unseen I will be lost to float without notice amid the halls of time, perhaps bouncing erratically through hazy dimensions, mossy and mysterious, ever seeking, ever yearning, ever longing to find permanence, to stand-out, to have some effect, to leave behind a tombstone written with words of wit and wisdom beyond the simple description, She Was Blue.

Not that blue per se is bad.  Blue is the color of a clear sky, the color of the notes of a jazz horn, the color of an ink, the color that happily announces the birth of a baby boy.

The clunk-splat sound of the paint brush hitting the tipped over paint-can brings me back to the bedroom painting project.  Two and a half walls done, two and a half to go.

I stand in the center of the room, no make-up, hair pulled up in a sloppy pony-tail, the nose piece of the protective glasses irritating the side of my nose, wearing paint-stained cut-offs and one of Sam’s old tee shirts, the ancient carpeting serving as a drop-cloth, the used-up can of paint at my feet, and in my ear, the ipod sound of the weather report of another blast of frozen Arctic Air that is turning everywhere in the United States, except us here in the far western states, blue with cold. I grab a paper towel, wipe the dot of blue off my big toe and reach for a new can of paint.

“Hey,” Sam comes through the open door, briefcase still in one hand, “you went with blue.”

He walks to my side, leans his head to mine and gives me a peck on the cheek, making sure to get nowhere near the paint stained shirt, “Does that mean it’s a boy?”

“Time will tell,” I smile and concentrate on prying the lid off the new paint can.  If I look too long in his eyes, he’ll see into my blue morass.

“I love how brave you are,” he says, walking back to the door, “giving up your meds so our baby will be healthy.  I knew you could do it,” he smiles, pulls off his tie and leaves the room.

I stir the paint, pick up the brush and start painting.  The frozen blue ice in the can melts into blue paint as it meets the wall.