I had an interesting thought a few months back while painting a room for my wife. Typically painting in our house happens when we’re having house guests or entertaining on a major holiday. There’s some inexplicable reason my wife has for constantly generating projects around our house at those times. In any event, I was enjoying my chore of painting the unreachable areas of the walls in our dining room. While I was rolling away to my heart’s content, I was deftly aware of being critically careful to not drip paint on my hardwood floors. To avoid such an event which would most likely lead to a fanciful flurry of curse words, I spread out our old drop cloths across the floor for protection.

As a finished up my painting, I looked down at the old drop cloths and had an introspective wisdom about the random splotches of paint on the drop cloth. Everybody has a drop cloth. They travel with you on your many moves and typically get dragged around room after room and paint color after paint color. These cloths see us in our darkest hours and brightest days. They also see us in our most creative states and also in the poorest of color choices. All in all, these drop cloths contain assorted splotches of drips and drops of paint that make up the palette of our life’s journey. Each drip marks a milestone, a room, a feeling, and an event that popped up in our travels.

I looked down at our drop cloth and saw so many colors from so many different things. When I sat and focused tightly on each color, I could remember just what room we painted, the reason for the color, the impetus prompting us to paint, and most importantly, just how we felt at that stage in our life. This concept to me seemed like a universally profound connection and we all relate to; a drop cloth can tell the story of your journey.

The smear of a burgundy crimson reminded me of our very first home purchase, a condo in Signal Hill, California. We kind of stumbled onto this place. We originally were looking for a rental and stumbled onto a harsh real estate agent by seeing her sign in Long Beach. We cold-called her and the rest was history. That condo was such a nugget of a spot; poolside, view of the harbor, kick ass neighborhood, and our first place. The master bedroom was painted in this rich burgundy color with cream and light blue accents. Ahhh, where the magic used to happen.

What drove us back to Washington was not just a car, but loss; 2004 for with my bro and 2005 with her mom. In 11 months, who would’ve thought? My wife was pregnant with Son #1, and we just bought our first house in Washington for less than we sold our condo in California. It was new construction and a blank slate. The drops of light blue on the drop cloth reminded me of that first room we painted in our new house. It was Son #1’s bedroom. I still remember struggling to put the dinosaur treatments on the wall. I can remember building the crib in that room, I can remember putting him to bed in his ‘big boy bed’ only to have him come running down the hall in the middle of the night because he was scared. No sleep but so much love. That blue color marked a turn to happiness despite the losses. I know our angels loved it.


Then there was the room across the hall in that house. It was Son #2’s room. But it started out as my wife’s ‘craft room’ to which I was reminded by the splotches of lavender on the drop cloth. It was chick-like and I was reminded that it wasn’t my room. But ultimately, Son #2, the improbable kid, joined us. It was repainted with a soft green and beige with a white chair rail. The drops of those colors reminded me of the cussing about how many times I had to paint that room to cover up the lavender and install the chair rail. But there was a little bit of satisfaction when the baby furniture was arranged. I remember the crib mobile music playing over Son #2 as he fell asleep. Would’ve never thought that such an unanticipated surprise would bring us so much joy and terror.


The overspray of fluorescent colors on the drop cloth marked an epic Halloween. I got the wild hair up my ass to go big on my wife’s favorite holiday. Before anyone jacked my originality, I created my version of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in Alice and Wonderland. I did it before the movie came out and spent a lot of time on the intricate details. The sashes, the hat, the jacket, all hand crafted. My wife was Alice and due to readership here I won’t provide my review of her costume but will pass on that it was ‘popular.’ The Mad Hatter costume including the elaborate makeup was a blast to don. I even won a Seattle Times costume contest.


And over six years later, I’m reminded of the new bedroom in our new house by the light forest green smear on the cloth. Son #1 got to pick his room in this house and the room color. I wanted to give him ownership of it; the freedom to choose and create. He helped me paint his walls, well at least for five minutes before he took off running and screaming with his brother. This is our new house, where we’ll establish new roots and new memories. Where new paint spills and splotches will create the mural of the latest chapter of our life.


It’s an odd concept, but the random assortment of paint drops just got me thinking and reconnecting with those memories. And as I reconnected with those memories from all of those years, I couldn’t help but get a little nostalgic. The drop cloth is an unorganized palette of colors used paint the canvas of life. Each color has its own set of emotions and context. But all are used to paint your life’s version of a Rembrandt smeared together forever; or at least as long as you have the drop cloth. After studying our drop cloths, I began to realize the complexity and intricacy of the journey. I think it’s pretty easy to lose sight of how far you’ve traveled given that we typically don’t have a broad perspective on the future. Mostly, we view each moment as its own unique instance and don’t seem to consider the larger gallery of life. Painting the dining room for another event while annoying, allowed me the opportunity to see all of our history in random palette of splotches.