Here is picture of the staircase that leads from our front downstairs hallway to the second level of the house. I painted the rises of the stairs in alternating patterns with sample-sized jars of Benjamin Moore paint last August while our two Chatterings (ages nine and eleven) were away with a friend in the country. Painting the interiors of the places I’ve lived in has been an interest of mine since the day my mother demanded I clean my closet and, hours later found 15-year-old Chattering Me painting the words “ART IS POWER” in large letters on one of the closet walls. In non-washable acrylics, no less. When I was out of college, I painted a thick, dramatic, mustard-colored stripe across one wall of my living room. This accentuated my writing desk, my career being the most important thing in the world to me at that time.

This recent work on the stairs matches the rest of our old house pretty nicely. And I have a fantasy of continuing the work by painting inspirational phrases and fragments of poetry we all like onto the Arts and Crafts woodwork that travels all through the house. I know, I know; it might be too much of a good thing.

But I wanted to show you these stairs because, well, there’s a lesson in them. Looking back, I feel that I could have painted other places in my lifetime, made some nice statements, but I just didn’t have the faith or the courage. I’d talk myself out of big plans. And now that I’m older, I see that, well it’s now or never. Either I get the stairs of my dreams or forever live wondering what might have been.

I almost lost heart on this project, and upon completing the first stair, nervously called Mr. Chattering in to see if I should drop the whole idea.

“I think I’m trying too hard to make it perfect,” I said to him, glumly, paintbrush still in hand.

And he said, “Oh, don’t make it perfect. I love it! If you make it too perfect, it won’t be any good.”

God love him. That helped. So on I went, painting fleur-de-lis freehand, stenciling the checkerboard pattern, wildly adding new colors as I went along.

I still have some stairs to go, and it’s far from perfect, but I’m pleased.