While I am injured still, I have returned home in hopes of getting my stitches removed from my hand for free (part of the global cost of the procedure). Would it have been cheaper to take them out myself? Yes. Would my mother have consistently berate me over how it would look better if I had them removed by a professional? Yes. Thus, I drove to my home to get stitches removed so she could A) see me go to the doctor, and B) know that I didn’t pay extra money or deviate and remove them myself.
But this transitions me into the important aspect of my mother, who I love with all my heart and has supported me dearly throughout my life. When I decided to get a philosophy degree instead of a mechanical engineering degree, she supported me knowing that my life would be difficult with a degree that didn’t have a future job prospect associated with it. However, and excuse the previous tangent, my mother also is very critical of my appearance and consistently wants me to become an Adonis of a man – beer, whiskey, and good food keeps that future decently at bay. S0, when my finger was marred by my brother and a razor blade (an unfortunate accident where I lost the ability to write by hand due to a splint and stitches), she instantly wanted professional medical staff to mend my future scar (she doesn’t know that scars are sexy now, they are in like infinity scarfs and assless chaps (all chaps are assless, but not everyone knows that) (depending where you live)). Her little cub needed to be her perfect little baby.
This mentality of perfection has always been in my life, which could explain some aspects of myself. For example, on holidays, I will wear a graphic-t and pajama pants, won’t put deodorant on, and will leave my hear unkempt and “poofy”. So, when she decided to have some remodeling done, I felt bad for the craftsmen who would have to live up to her standards of perfection. Then, something amazing happened and I got to glimpse something that even a perfectionist couldn’t ignore.
A polish painter, who speaks very little English, has been working on painting a good amount of rooms. Since I don’t live here, I never met him until Thanksgiving (when my finger met an unfortunate fate) and now, when I have returned to have that mistake reversed as best as medical science can achieve at this current state. When I first ran into him, he was on his way out and I only got a brief introduction. Now, on my second visit, I have spent the entire day with him as we share a work space. He works diligently, while I read and write. A part of me feels useless as we both work in silence and I feel that I should assist him in some regards. One of those was making a new pot of coffee for the two of us.
Then, on a freak chance (which appears to happen often for smokers), we both ended up outside for cigarettes. We talked, both trying to bridge the gap of language. We did well enough that I was able to ask him how enjoyed painting and if he did more than just walls. Here I learned he painted murals, but what we was most proud of was something that struck me as fantastic. We went into the back of his van… and he pulled out some of his samples that he shows customers (I don’t know if he knows that I am broke and a writer, but based on his demeanor, I assume he wanted to show his work not sell it). It was beautiful, with multiple mediums he was able to produce textures and use layering to provide completely unique and sensational aspects to the plainest walls of a home. His murals were nothing when he spoke of them, it was these samples of painstaking layering and texturing that made him truly proud.
I could only think: “My mom would never allow this in her home.” And I would have been right based on the work he was currently doing to the ceilings: spakle, sanding, and white paint. None of these truly beautiful skills he wanted to sell, just the base level of painting.
While reading, I suddenly received a phone call from my mom. She was checking up on me, making sure my finger was fine, confirming I had enough to eat (even though she wanted me to be an Adonis), criticizing my smoking… all the usual things a mom would do/ask. When she commented on my smoking and how I needed to quit, I mentioned that me and the painter had a smoke together and he had shown me his samples and how I thoroughly enjoyed them.
To which she responded: “Oh yes! They’re fantastic. He did the powder-room, I love it.”
At first it didn’t click that my mom the perfectionist was discussing the room I had urinated in that room earlier in the day. I hadn’t taken but a moment to jump in, release a moan, and jump back into my book (washing hands would be in there but my finger makes that a pain so I’ve done that rarely the last week). And just like that pee, I returned to my book and thought nothing of it.
Until I had to hit the head. Instead of choosing the closest toilet, I moved straight to the powder-room, a room I rarely visited as it is for guests and eerily unbathroom like… I always felt I was destroying something beautiful when I used it. There I was greeted with something I hadn’t seen in the back of the van, the technique was the same, but the color was uniquely my mother’s. And then I realized it, the entire painting was a giant mistake upon mistake upon mistake. It was randomness placed in a perfect room. The juxtaposition of flawless perfection and chaos led to this piece. How could my mother, a person wholly focused on perfection, allow such an imperfect entity in her room. A room that all guests used (unless they had some weird toilet phobia, which would be silly, because that toilet was cleaner than any surface in my home because… you guessed it, my mom is a perfectionist).
That left me with an incredible thought;or as some of my friendly editors would say: my piece’s moral. In an age where we are striving for perfection and we constantly seeking perfection; we have learned to stress ourselves out when it isn’t attained. No matter the case, most of us grow unease when we work on something and have to let it into the world in an imperfect form. So, is it no surprise that the chaos in the bathroom is my mom’s favorite wall? It is simple, she walks in and she doesn’t have to think about where there are mistakes because the entire thing is a mistakes upon mistakes connected together to create something immensely pleasurable. Why is it so pleasurable, well I am no scientist, but I imagine it is the fact that your brain can’t try and create sense out of it to see a mistake. You just see beauty, even though, it is immeasurable imperfect.