The House Protects The Dreamer

It was three years ago... I think. I'm not sure anymore. My book had just come out and I needed to take some time off so I announced I was retiring from photography. The truth is, I retired from everything. Pat said he would pull our cart, solo, until I was rested and ready to work/face the world again. I was unhappy and unsure of where I was going and what I was doing. I spent a lot of time here, at home, just being PatNStephen. I'm not sure I was being Stephen because I was going through one of those times when I didn't know who he was. Did I want to keep struggling as a photographer or did I want to try something else?

So I threw myself into a project, which is always a good idea, a good solution, for me.

I started rennovating our apartment. I began stripping paint off walls, window frames, door frames, the tin ceiling in the living room. I knew this was the answer because Francesca in UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN rennovated her home and, by the end of the movie, was happy. At the start of the film someone said "you're going to be happy again" and by the end of the picture she was. It had to work for me.

After two weeks of stripping I said (not necessarily out loud) "well screw this". It was boring work and it was work with capital letters and hyphens between each one.

So we have been living in unfinished land for three years. Finally, I couldn't look at those awful, dingy, dirty white walls full of holes from old nails and sticky residue from velcro (used to hang artwork). I was, finally, in a place to finish the whole project and, what is more, I saw a theme. My life has been filled with unfinished projects; in fact, I think that I am an unfinished project, a work in progress. So I decided to leave all the half-stripped places incomplete, sand them down, put on finishing touches and make it a theme for the apartment. Each room is incomplete, like me, waiting to be be finished--a work in progress.

Pat chose all the colours for the walls. I chose the trims. We modeled the kitchen after my inspiration, UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN. The bathroom just sort of evolved as we went along. And the living room developed out of repeated viewings of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. New artwork given to me by one of my employers helped spruce things up and I dove into the artwork stored in my office for the rest. Then, just to make sure that everything would be perfect, the universe sent our landlord with the news that we were getting a new kitchen sink/counter unit, something we have been asking/waiting for for four years. The old one was falling apart--indeed had no doors on it and was missing the front of one drawer and was bowing in the middle. A mess. He replaced it with a brand new one and, combined with my handiwork, everything is pretty again. It took me a week to paint the kitchen, a day to do the bathroom and a day to do the living room. The other room in our home will have to remain unpainted but it doesn't really matter, since the walls of that room are a (literal!) scrapbook of memories from our lives. The wall hangings cover almost every bit of the walls. All that remains is to either get a new kitchen floor or an area rug to cover the (horrible) one we have. I can live with that, though.

And you know what else? It was true. My prophecy came true. I don't think it (really) had anything to do with rennovating. Natch, there is a strong sense of accomplishment and Pat and I ARE happy with the way our home looks now. But, for myself, inside myself, just like the man in UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN said to Frances Mays "you're going to be happy again".

I am happy.