Peachy

Once again I find myself swathed in peach-toned house paint. Each time I move to a new place, I can't resist the temptation to cover at least one room in an orange-ish tone. Swamped as we Oregonians are by an overabundance of gray and soggy days, it's very satisfying to mimic the heat saturated hues of the Southwest with paint. After it dries and the furniture has been put in back in place, I'm able to sit back and pretend I'm living in the warmth of an adobe house in Santa Fe. Or Phoenix. Or anywhere besides this rain forest in which I find myself.

The privilege of painting walls in my house is one I do not take for granted. In my early convent years, my artist self felt color starved much of the time. Limited to stark white, the endless theme of the building's interior I felt my spirit likewise fade. The battleship-gray linoleum floors, long, darkened hallways, endless flights of stairs and industrial sized rooms with reachably high ceilings absence of personal space sucked my spirit into a hole.

Until I was finally privileged to have my own room in each of the many mission houses where I taught, my craving for beauty had to settle for the natural beauty that surrounded the convent: the richly forested hillside; an abundance of apple trees in the orchard; the wheat-covered prairie that stretched for miles beyond; the pristine mountain ranges in the distance and crystal clear skies. Without this, my spirit would have shriveled up and died long before I finally left. To this day, beauty remains an essential element in my life; a priority I seek out wherever and however I can.