Do you ever wonder if your walls can talk? If they could, what would they say?
Would they praise you for your decorating style, for selecting colors and patterns that make them beautiful? Would they thank you for allowing them to smell the perfume on the scarves hanging in the bedroom closet? Would they express their gratitude for the opportunity to enjoy the aroma of a delicious meal being prepared each evening?
While my walls might not share the opinion that this is an accurate description of the house we have inhabited since 1993, one thing they do share is a talent for finding things they can all criticize. Nothing escapes their scrutiny.
Most of our walls are made of plaster, and they tend to crack easily. Every time I hear sounds coming from Fort Liberty (formerly known as Fort Bragg), I immediately picture new cracks forming in the walls. While I understand the necessity for these military exercises, my walls do not. I can almost hear them groaning as they endure this treatment.
At moments like this, I am glad my walls cannot talk, for I can only imagine what they would say. After all, they have had thirty years of exposure to colorful language that provides them with an enormous vocabulary for swearing at anyone or anything that offends them. How they can be inanimate objects and yet display such sensitivity to their surroundings is a mystery to me.
If these cracks are not enough of an indignity to my walls, they must also suffer what they probably regard as bad taste in my choice of much of the artwork on display throughout my home.
Let’s begin with a drawing done by my younger daughter when she was in preschool. Although she was only 4 at the time, she somehow managed to channel her inner Salvador Dalí to create a bizarre portrait of her family, one that even now alternates between being amusing and frightening.
I am convinced the walls must look at our faces in this drawing and conclude the inhabitants of this house are strange. My face is probably the oddest of all. My eyes are crossed in a way that makes me look like I have just consumed several bottles of vodka.
I love this picture as only a mother can, not in spite of its peculiarities but because of them. I don’t care what the walls think.
I don’t know what our walls gazed at every day before we bought this house, but having to look at Vincent van Gogh’s vibrant colors and surreal landscapes along with Gustav Klimt’s display of men and women kissing and embracing at odd angles has probably been quite an adjustment for them.
If our walls are grateful for the opportunity to look at anything in our house, they will thank us for allowing them to spend their days gazing at our photographs. We may have given them the impression that we are weirdos trapped in a preschool painting or lovers of art that is both baffling and unorthodox, but the family history residing in our photos redeems us.
We have a gallery of family pictures in our kitchen that we put up several years ago. It is a combination of photos from my family and my husband’s family, and it serves as a constant reminder of those who have greatly influenced our lives. It also reminds our daughters of their unique pedigree.
My husband’s maternal and paternal families came to America from Sicily and Lebanon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of all the pictures of his family, there is one picture in particular that I love. It is a photo of my mother-in-law and father-in-law holding hands and walking down a street in Brooklyn, looking back at the camera as they were being photographed. They share the look of young lovers confident their future would be filled with many blessings. And it was.
My parents, whose ancestors came from Wales and England more than four hundred years ago, have a similar picture. It was taken on the eve of their wedding as they cut a cake. They also look very hopeful for the future. Theirs was a long and happy marriage.
If our walls really could talk, I hope they would say that life in our house is many things, but it is never boring.
Mary Zahran, who likes vodka but doesn’t drink it by the gallon, can be reached at maryzahran@gmail.com.
