Those Darn Walls

Maybe it's the paint fumes, but I have walls on the mind ... and floors and furniture placement and maybe we should move this picture over there and that one over here.  Start one home improvement project and it sets off a domino effect of other changes that must get done.  I told my husband, "Why not add a fresh coat of paint before we rip out these old rugs?"  He agreed.  Then I said, "And while we're at it, we could use new lamps for our bedroom and a new television and ... "  And here's where he stopped agreeing. 

There's a sort of momentum that occurs when making changes and I have a theory that it all begins with the color of the walls.  Here's one story as proof:  A fabulously awesome friend of mine once found her status to be unhappily single until she painted her walls the perfect shade of blue-gray-green and now she's engaged to be married this summer.

It's like that with everything.  I started this year by repainting a few invisible walls that had surrounded me.  I had been living quietly in my self-made box of "stay-at-home mom who used to teach and may go back to substituting after the kids get older".  It was safe and secure, but the wall representing my career needed a brighter shade.  So I took an anxiety filled leap, declared myself a writer to friends and family who hardly knew I had such an interest and "painted" that wall a lovely shade of grass green (in the form of my self-published novel on Kindle).  And now, a domino effect has been set in motion including this blog and a long daunting list of promotional ideas.  I am networking by recently joining She Writes.  I am devising a plan for a book trailer and dreaming of a warm sunny day in which to do it.  I am thinking about creating discussion topics and party ideas for book clubs.

And while on the subject of walls, it doesn't take much surfing on the web to find discussions and opinions on the downsizing and closing of brick and mortar stores.  The phrase, "Borders is going bankrupt", is being heralded all around the web like Paul Revere touting , "The British are coming!"  I have read several arguments that Amazon is glutting the industry with sub-par works therefore obscuring higher quality and noteworthy writing like needles in a haystack.  On the opposite side, the younger generation seems to encourage all and various forms of self expression within realms of virtual walls.  I feel both sides of the argument make solid points.  However, the bigger point may be that the walls in this decade seem to be changing color from a shade of solid brick to the ambiguous hue of a virtual wall.  And this change extends beyond the books made of paper at Borders and onto other areas of our world, such as education and the rise in on-line schooling options.  Like I said, changes take on a domino effect and I'm interested to see how it's all going to play out.

In this week of wearing o' the green and Irish luck, I wish everyone the best of luck whether you're painting the actual walls of your home, changing the tint of an invisible wall in your life or simply posting something interesting on a virtual wall.