paint paint paint paint paint paint

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I am given a wall to paint.

I am not sure how one paints a wall, but I guess it cannot be too different from painting paper, and I've done that before.

Ooh, you can Doordash paint? And paintbrushes? You can Doordash a lot of things, actually. I guess it's not just for food anymore.

While the paints are being delivered, I stare at the blank white wall and try to decide what to do. It's the curse of the blank page, except that the blank page is huge. I don't think I've ever painted something so big.

Someone suggests sketching out the shapes in Sharpie. But Sharpie = permanent and permanence scares me. I don't like scary things. Instead, I block out the shapes in purple masking tape. Wonderful, moveable masking tape.

I use a whole roll. The broad idea has taken shape; I can see what I want now. Other people can see, too. They seem excited by the idea.

Eventually there's no more planning to do. Only painting is left. I stall for a while, wiggling around my strips of tape to take solace in their mutability, but I have to bite the bullet at some point. I load up my brush with a glob of gray paint — it's heavier than I thought — and lay down the first stroke. That's when it starts.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

This is all I can think, all I can see. I coax the bristles over the surface of the wall and watch the paint seep into the valleys of the stucco.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

People come by to ask me what I'm doing. "I'm painting," I say. And so it is. Right now I am painting gray blobs, and it's not obvious what they should be, yet. Especially because I've been removing the tape as I go. The painting is in the awkward teenage phase where it knows what it wants to be, but it isn't there yet.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

The sun beats down on the wall and on my back. I can see the paint dry in real time; this one, like most paints, gets lighter as it dries.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

Oh no, I've made the wrong shape. I wet a paper towel and desperately scrub at the wall. It takes some elbow grease, but it does come off. Thank goodness.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

Somebody clips cat ears onto me.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

I was told, at the beginning, that whatever I painted would be painted back over afterwards. I know this fact, abstractly, but cannot bring myself to care. I just want my thing to exist.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

I must have fallen asleep at some point. Time is acting like some non-Newtonian fluid — I thought it was solid but it's slipping through my fingers, and surely I'm not gone, because I'm lucid and time's still happening…wait, it's been how many hours?

paint paint paint paint paint paint

Someone tells me, "It's really coming together!"

paint paint paint paint paint paint

Being asleep would explain both the time and the pajamas. (Huh, I'm still wearing pajamas.)

paint paint paint paint paint paint

It's cold now; it was hot earlier, some time ago, but I don't remember when ago was. All I know is that my fingers are getting stiff and the water is turning icy on my hands.

paint paint paint paint paint paint

I run to my room to get my green hoodie, my favorite. I take the opportunity to change into real clothes, jeans and a T-shirt. According to the mirror, I am a catgirl. I am the high school art kid. I am Mina from Pokemon Sun and Moon. Wait! No time to get distracted. I run back to the wall and…

paint paint paint paint paint paint

I wake up. There is paint all over my fingernails and my green comfort hoodie. I find splotches of paint on my jeans and all the way up my left arm. How did that even get there? Even my mouth tastes like paint…or, what I imagine paint tastes like. That's probably not good.

But it is done. The wall is painted, and I have done a thing.