This is my meditation reflection on my experience of upheaval where order is all gone.
My small house’s interior walls had countless superficial damage due to removal of glued mirrors, book shelves, nails, hooks. wall fan and wall sockets. My painting contractor told me to expect 15 working days to complete the job.
The workers were paid to shift furniture and storage cardboard boxes, to facilitate painting of walls and ceilings. They shifted with no particular arrangement in mind and without consideration for access. Boxes and furniture were piled up and covered with large plastic sheets. It looked like a major upheaval, although the things were not going anywhere, yet they were moved around like 360 degrees.
The bedrooms were painted, except for one, which two of us shared. We could use the dining table to place our computers and work there. Then the living room, dining room and kitchen were painted. We shifted to spend time in a painted bedroom, making do by sitting on the mattress with our laptops. I had creaky knee caps when I stood up because my legs were cramped. I couldn’t walk upright because my legs could not carry my body weight. The feeling lasted several seconds before I slowly straightened up. It was scary. The last time I had such a temporary physical setback was in 2013 – 2014, when I suffered from malnutrition.
The painters rushed through three coats – the paint sealer and two coats of desired wall color. The entire interior was painted in 5 working days.
The workers didn’t know how to arrange the storage boxes for accessibility. Everything was piled up like they were ready to go in a horse carriage. All order is all gone.
When they were busy in another part of the house, I quietly re-arranged the boxes in rows and columns.
After the job was completed, they left and I swept and mopped multiple times, to remove dust, plaster dust, and putty dust. Those 5 days were horrendous. Through no real fault of the workers. The supervisor and boss of the company did their best. It is just the nature of the work makes the house terrible to live in while painting goes on.
Lessons learned from living inside a house while interior painting is carried out
- I told my family many times that we must never do internal painting ever again, once we are living inside a house.
- The amount of mess is horrible.
- The re-arrangement is almost 100%.
- Sweeping, mopping and re-cleaning is necessary countless times.
The prompt “all gone” is part of the collection of January prompts in “A4 daily Writing Practice 365 Writing Prompts Workbook” created by Mia Botha, a writing instructor, at https://writerswrite.co.za