March 17, 2014

When I was growing up, I seldom had a room of my own. For a brief time when I was ten, I had a room of my own, the alcove off the living room. During my high school years, I shared a large room with my younger sister. In college, I had a single room my freshman year, but after that I shared a room with my roommate.  And of course after our marriage, I shared a bedroom with my husband Bill, first in apartments, later in houses.

Two months after Bill died of cancer in our bedroom, I had a strong compulsion to re-decorate the room and I went about it without stopping to figure out why. I brought home samples of peach paint and painted sections of foam board so I could move the boards around under different light. I removed as much furniture as I could and painted the ceiling a light peach and the walls one shade darker. I painted the already white woodwork a crisp white. I replaced the pleated white window shades, dingy from years of use, with Shoji style shades made of paper and bamboo. I ordered a white and brushed nickel ceiling fan, and my son installed it for me. I bought sliding mirror doors to replace the heavy wooden doors on the closet. I did not rearrange the teak furniture, only moved the bed slightly closer to one wall—Bill’s side of the bed.  A friend helped me re-hang the oriental artwork, and I found woodcut style decals of three swallows to put on the walls.  I worked very hard for almost a month.

At the time I did not puzzle about why I was painting and redecorating. Only later did I wonder, and discussed the compulsion with a friend. “You had to make it yours,” she said. I think that is right. The room had been my room and Bill’s for thirty-three years, and now I needed to make the room mine, in order to stay in it. I needed the room to be familiar and yet different, more feminine.

Now in the morning I wake up and admire the peach walls and ceiling as the sunshine gradually fills the room. The sun shines through the eastern window that Bill gazed at during his last days. I turn my eyes to the opposite wall where the Chinese calligraphy that I ordered from Hong Kong now hangs above the mirrored closet doors. The calligraphy offers a blessing for a long, healthy, and peaceful life. May it be so.