Just DO-ing

Painting. That is what I have been doing for the past two days. Just painting. Nothing artistic or anything like that...nothing that required any focus really, or talent. The covered porch on my house was showing signs of chipping and peeling from the hard winters and blistering sunny days of the past few summers. So, I got out the scraper and the sandpaper and the primer...and went to work.

I had this idea in my head that if I could focus on nothing, and just DO that I would be able to feel less lonely for my babies, less anxious about waiting for my puppy, and less melancholy about the future.

Scrape, scrape...sand, sand, sweep...prime...

I decided I wanted some new color on the porch...a new dimension to my home of grass green and yellow green...so I picked the color of vanilla ice cream..french vanilla sans the specks. A nice deep soothing simple color to compliment the house that is the brightest color in my neighborhood.

The paint had a lovely thick texture and I spent a fair amount of time just stirring it around staring into it's opaqueness. Not thinking. Just DO-ing. hours and hours passed...I was outside painting by the light of a lantern that flickered with the illusion of candlelight. Then, I woke up with the sun to paint again. Stopping only to feed my children and make sure my sprinkler was positioned in various spots around my yard throughout the day...I painted and painted...amazed at how many coats were needed to cover the light yellow green that had been on the boards before...4,5,--- 8 coats!

Not thinking...just DO-ing.

At 6 in the evening, the work was done. I couldn't even pretend that there was more to do. I stood there looking at the clean, freshly painted porch..admiring how it looked so soothing to my eyes. I wished I could paint it again.

Instead, I called to my boys that we were going on a walk to watch the sun set in the gully right after dinner.

We walked down into the meadow, where the first rays of pink were settling around the mountain line in the distance. Entering the field I kneeled next to the rock that would be the place we will soon spread the ashes of one of our twins...the only twin we ever saw or got to hold. I put some purple and yellow flowers on the rock and closed my eyes, trying to find the quiet that I had held while painting...

I love you...I love you...my heart beat with the rhythm of the words...I love you.

Walking away from the rock I looked up and saw a silver balloon sailing away up into the sky. My 13 year old saw my smile and commented that he has always found it strange that people enjoy seeing balloons float away even though it usually means that somewhere there is a small child crying that they lost their balloon.

My youngest son laughed and said "Look Mom...It's going so high! It's going to heaven!! It's a present for our babies!"

I squeezed his little hand...and walked on with my boys.

Just DO-ing.