This is a true story.
I once lived with a man in a rented flat that came with white walls.
He told me that until we bought a house of our own, we shouldn’t waste money painting any colors on those walls, because they weren’t “ours.”
Somehow, we never got our own house. We lived in that flat for ten years. Ten years of no color on the walls. Ten years of no color in our lives at all.
I finally left him. And when I did, I moved into another flat with white walls, but this time, the first thing I did was paint them. I put color everywhere—a blue wall in the bath, a red wall in the living room, a faux finish in the bedroom and trompe l’oeil in the kitchen. And when I was done, my arms hurt, but my soul sang. I looked at those painted walls and I wondered why I had listened to him.
I don’t know the answer. But I do know that if anyone says “No color,” I will never listen again.
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