Red

I painted my kitchen red yesterday. Not red-red; more like a Tuscan red; an earthy brick red. I actually had nightmares about it the night before, that I painted the whole kitchen and hated it, but no, I am in love with this red. This is not the first time I have painted a kitchen red (remember that, Nat and A.J.?), but the last time it was a vibrant cherry red, and it took...four? five? coats of paint? I can't remember--I know that I started crying when I realized that the third coat wasn't going to cut it, and I don't think I stopped crying until it was over.

I read an article recently about developing your intuition, and one of the suggested exercises was to write a stream-of-consciousness description of your life--your fears, dreams, hopes, and anything else you can think of.  You are then supposed to go back and replace all of the words that carry negative associations with words that evoke positive ones, like open to instead of scared; excited instead of nervous. I haven't actually done the exercise, but I have thought about the idea a lot since reading the article. Is it possible to create a more positive, peaceful reality just by thinking of it that way? I don't know. Regardless, instead of being scared of painting the kitchen red, I decided to be open to it. And you know what? It's now my favorite room in the whole house.