I Painted This Much! :: May 23rd, 2002 ::
I stood on the aluminum ladder, maybe six feet above the ground, and I hoped that the ladder’s wobbling and shaking was a part of its design and not some buckling of its structure portending its collapse and my falling to the ground. No, I told myself, this is a good ladder. A new ladder. Like sky scrapers that are designed to sway in the wind, this ladder is designed to bend and spring under your weight. I continued painting, trying to put such negative thoughts in the back of my mind, taking solace in the fact that even if the thing did break, it was only a six foot fall, and how much can happen to you when you only fall six feet. Some bruising, maybe get some paint in my hair.
I stood up there for an hour and a half, maybe two hours, painting the barn. This was my first experience with prolonged physical labor in years. I couldn’t tell you when the last time was that I did something like this. I mean, sure, I’ve worked on my car, but those were usually small projects that took a couple of hours and included my drinking a beer or something. This was real work. I sweated, I had my hand cramp up, and once I came down the arches of my feet ached from being pressed against the rungs of the ladder for so long. But for all the pain I went through, I was also able to look up and say, “Hey, I did that!”
