The Goldenrod Chronicles, Watching Paint Dry
+ upcoming changes & current gratitude
I think the most impressive grandparent flex is sending a Christmas card with ONLY the grandparents and their grandkids.
That’s it. Just grandma and grandpa and the grandkids. Maybe with their names and ages (the kids, of course). No need to mention who these young kids are (obvs the grandkids, and def not some street children adopted from Poland) and absolutely no need to show or acknowledge the generation that birthed said grandchildren.
Honestly, no shade. I hands-down love this. 110%
Not only because this is exactly what my parents did this year* but we received a few other cards like this too. I am hoping this is because, with age, folks feel freer and freer from all the *expectations* of the world: photos of the whole family, essay including where everyone lives and all accomplishments from the year.
I say this in part because of a hilarious little video about Christmas cards and because ours are strung on the mantle and I see them each day and because M and I are about to send out the most unhinged of our New Years postcards to date.
This morning, Roux adjusted her view out the window and stood up and her body tensed. Suddenly the fur on the back of her neck and shoulder blades bristled. She watched, muscled taut, silently.
Since she’s three now (HBD Roux!) she’s becoming much a little bit tamer. Less reactive. She used to bark uncontrollably at anything out the window: people on the road half mile away, plastic bag blowing in the wind, car driving suspiciously slowly, feral cat camouflaged in the grass, nothingburger delivery truck.
She was watching so carefully it caught my curiosity enough to look out the window and trace her line of sight. Today she breathlessly watched a medium size deer walk, so very very s l o w l y across the hayfield. So slowly I wondered if it was injured. So slowly I wondered if it had been hit by a car. So slowly I wondered if something was wrong.
In daylight deer don’t just slowly amble across the field. The sprint and gallop and leap and run at full speed. They careen out of the woods across the street and down the hill and through this patch. In summer they appear like a magic act from the the tall curtain of corn. Cutting the same path each time. Through the field, but also across the landscape to the east: this field, that field, across the road, the farm field with the new drainage tiles, up the hill, through the woods, emerging on Plymouth Church Road where the turkeys congregate.
It’s rhythmic. You can tell time by it. (There is a word for ways to tell time without a clock, by marking the changes of the sun and light, but I can’t recall it - can you?)
The deer crested the slight hill out back, crossed into the harvested bean field, and crept into the woods.
I have, as promised in the title, been watching paint dry the past few days. As I promised M I would ‘finish the trim’ by the ‘end of 2023’ this week has been entirely dedicated to the small acts of required to finish the trim, which is mostly a miscellaneous list. Caulk trim, paint trim, fill holes, add small pieces, finish the nonsense by the kitchen sink windows, etc.
Although I full assembled and painted the window casings and trim before installing them (the main feat of 2022, mind you last year), I installed all the door trim as just primed boards, not painted, for reasons I will not bore you with. BUT that means that each door (seven, which is a lot of doors for a very small house) required caulked edges, filled holes, and paint. Which is, a lot more detail that I care to do by hand, but have to do by hand.
I also love (LOVE) clean paint projects, that absolutely smooth finish you can only get with a paint sprayer. I love and cherish my paint sprayer, and also cringed as I painted the first door casing by hand: all those awkward corners and crevices and visible brush strokes and blurbs and blorps of paint that are unavoidable (when you are not a professional).
But/and by now I have also learned that painting takes a certain amount of faith. Trust in the process. [This is not my strong suit, but painting has been surprisingly helpful in upping my ‘trust’ game.] Conviction it will all work out even though you are witnessing something that looks like a preschool finger paint project. Paint smooths. Paint settles. Paint levels out as it dries.
I waited, anxiously, for my brushy brushstrokes to dry, to apply the second coat, and to hope they looked okay when done. And sure enough, nice and smooth and no real brushstrokes super visible to the eye. But also still painstakingly slow.
So I moved to an adorable little paint roller (debatable if roller texture or brush marks are worse on trim IMO) and rolled my first coat on the casement and worried in horror at the plumped up texture of paint left behind, like a popcorn ceiling. Oh no! Was this (way faster) method going to leave me with rough trim that looked so far below my standards?
No! Breathe! Paint smooths and levels as it dries. Everything will be okay. Just keep going.
(And, honestly, the best way to wait for paint to dry is to completely ignore it. To have a long enough list and loop of things to paint so you can just keep going on everything’s first coat and then when you’re done everything is ready for a second coat.)
And, of course, coming back later everything looked smooth and pristine. And, yes, painting primed white trim into white painted trim (Bleached Linen, to be exact) does make a strikingly big difference. And now everything is fresh and new and the same color and done. And I can trust that just because something looks a little rough to start, doesn’t mean it’s not going to end up okay in the end.
This is one of my favorite quotes, a permission slip that has served me well. This was from March 6, 2015 - about two months into posting a daily quote, and two days before starting this newsletter.1 The view out the little bathroom window in the old house, snow and cold and lost.
I have been feeling a bit lost lately. Not so much in my life overall, but in my writing and in this practice. I can see (and feel and know) that I am not showing up the write (no matter how much I think about writing) and what eventually hits the page feels not genuine, forced, not sparkly. I am just coming to terms with this lack of direction, and think it’s time I give myself some much needed permission to wander in it, to feel lost (and honor it), to get lost.
I think what that means is I may/will step back from writing here a bit. Or, at least, my expectation (and constant disappointment) that I do so regularly. I need some time away to figure out where my (writing) spirit is right now, what this missive is, and where and how I need and want to focus (or relax) my energy.
I started this practice (the daily quotes, that evolved into this newsletter) at the beginning of 2015 (2015!!!). If my math serves me, that’s almost nine years. More than enough time to merit a little reset. Perhaps what’s different this time around is that I feel the need to go fiddle around in silence, instead of figure it all out here - on the page with you.
What I do expect is influencing this/will appear: mid-live, perimenopause, aging, my body/body neutrality, and resetting my heart compass because - lost. I suspect the offerings here may change some, but I don’t know how yet. (I am, of course, always open to all of your ideas! Send an email or drop a comment.)
Thanks for your grace as/if I take a few weeks off from appearing in your inbox. Paid subscribers - you’ll get all your extras (snail mail, playlists, themes) AND 2024 themes will not arrive until the END of January.
A few notes on paid subscriptions & my eternal gratitude ♥
I love you! Thank you! I appreciate you! I can’t believe you share your hard earned dollars with me to read The Goldenrod Chronicles and get Snail Mail Love. It means a lot to me. Thank you.
For folks with paid annual subscriptions (extra content and snail mail love) many of you are around your annual renewal time. Please note 1) Substack will auto-renew if you don’t actively stop your paid subscription. If you are a “founding member” you will auto-renew at the same $$$ you gave last year.
If you auto-renewed but really didn’t want to (or you have sticker shock at your “founding membership” renewal rate please let me know and we’ll do some sort of change or refund.
If you do not plan to renew your subscription: THAT IS OKAY. I love your support, but it’s also not required. Don’t feel bad! Don’t feel like you have to let me know. You do you!
Special Hint: There is a discount code hidden in the Just Say No punch card this year.
Curious about being a paid subscriber? Want a little snail mail love just to see what it’s like? You can join up monthly and cancel any time!
December snail mail love went out today, and November will come soon
Much love and gratitude to you as we almost flip the calendar into a new year. I hope you are finding some magic (whatever that means to you) time to reflect (in whatever way means most to you).
With many hugs,
vanessa 💕
I recently received an email that TinyLetter (the now MailChimp owned platform on which I started this missive) is closing down in February. More on that to come! (And Nancy S - your email was so perfectly timed on this topic and I will write you back soon.)
Happy New Year! Here's to finding/making/keeping space for hope and grief, meditation and adventure, all the lessons we can learn and carry.
I am here for all of this. And will stay here! Come hell or highwater. It is always time well spent/made/lived if I am reading your writing/clicking links/thinking thoughts or having memories because of a question or poke from you.