work
Exhibit P: I can still paint walls
I have painted every wall in my house at least once. I have repainted most of them since the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic. It began with the kitchen, which got a necessary remodeling in 2020 because the cabinets were made from a composite material that had reached the end of its days. If I bent to retrieve a spray bottle from under the sink, the left cabinet door would collapse like a woman overcome. While nearby, another door looked on drowsily, like a drunken sailor balancing against his mate. Above the cabinets, an empty bulkhead laid claim to turf it had no intention of putting to good use. Instead, it forced the cabinets to prostrate, while it impotently stood its ground. The dishwasher leaked. The refrigerator was marred. The microwave tripped the breaker if I opened the door while it was still running. The kitchen needed a lot of work.
All of it felt suddenly unbearably urgent, being at home as we were at that time. While the pandemic lurked outside my door, my house became more orderly, more beautiful. And only the pace at which the transformation occurred, revealed the frantic workings of my mind. I measured. I sketched. I identified suppliers. I designed the look and feel and function of the kitchen I wanted my kitchen to be. I had learned so much from my father while growing up. In the past, I would work with my husband to tackle such projects. But after 27 years, he had “moved on”— that’s what he told me—and I no longer felt confident enough to try a project as ambitious as a kitchen remodel alone. So, I hired a contractor to do the majority of the work. But I decided that I could still paint the walls.
Painting a wall satisfied my need to see some tangible outcome from my efforts. Much of the work that I do feels abstract. If you ask me what I do, I’ll never mention the work I do at home. I’ll say that I am a professor of literature and culture, which means that I get paid to engage often brilliant young minds as we read, write, and grapple with a range of ideas. At the end of a semester, I feel spent. Nevertheless, I usually have only a hazy notion of what has come of my efforts. Sometimes it is years before even one student out of the hundreds who take my classes returns to drop an email or to send a handwritten note of thanks or reflection.
My dentist, it turns out, happens to be the father of one my earliest students. He called her when we discovered the connection. He put her on speaker-phone and the way she said my name reflected the rough edges of my eager early years of teaching. Then her tone softened as she began to recount the lessons she took away from my classroom. She credited my spirited demands with her ability to publish several books over the years.
I won’t even mention that time I encountered another student, who had become a nurse and remembered me fondly, as I attempted to keep my hinder regions covered by a thin hospital gown. Happenstances I have had over the years.
Generally, despite the university’s insistence on measurable outcomes, my work as a professor does not yield immediate, obvious results. When I paint a wall, even if I hate the way things turn out (as was the case with a couple of dubious color and style choices during my recent remodeling), the physicality of the work presents itself clearly as evidence of what has been done. The wall was one color; now it is another color. I remember the pride with which my oldest son beat his chest when I discovered crayon drawings on a wall. He declared, “I did that!” When I paint a wall, that is how I feel. Painting a wall satiates that 3 year old child inside of me who still seeks affirmation.
