White Picket Fences

When I was younger, I painted houses with my dad in the summer time.

But I also painted for my grandmother. Her white picket fence. I would always go stay with her in the dead of summer. During the months of excruciating heat. I would sit outside all day long, with my little paint brush and work on her fence. I normally had a Walkman blaring in my ears and would never hear her come up behind me and yell “YOUS MISSED A SPOT!!!” she always said the word “yous” instead of you. Old world talk. Then in the evening, after I had thoroughly baked for a good few hours, we would sit in her kitchen and play cribbage. For hours. And drink coke or coffee for her. She’d tell dirty jokes. She’d ask about my life. I would tell her. Her kitchen and that cribbage board was my escape.

I keep the paint brush I used when I painted for her. It sits in my house, on a shelf.  And every time I look at it, I think of her.

This past weekend my husband and I put up our own little white picket fence around the garden. (There will be one surrounding the whole premises, but that will be a bit down the road, we have a very very large lot, it will take a lot of fence. ) We were given these old shabby pieces of fence a couple years ago. So we decided to take the wire fence that was currently around the garden down, put this one up and paint it white. I painted with my ipod in my back pocket and earphones blaring. My son would come up behind me and yell “YOU MISSED A SPOT!” …..and I wished he would have used the word “yous.”  but he didn’t.  I’m not quite done, there are a lot of spots I missed and I need to finish the entirety of the back side, but when I look out the window I smile. There is just something about a white picket fence.