THE FIREPLACE

Filling the blank space.
 

We recently moved into a brand-new home, and I mean brand-new. It’s literally a shell on a mud-patch! It’s beautiful and I can’t wait to make it cosier, but for now it remains very NEW! Do you know what I mean? Lots of blank walls, blank floors, small furniture in bigger rooms – that type of thing. Frankly, it’s not very cosy - YET!

The one wall in particular that’s been haunting me most, belongs to the family/living room. This is where we all gather at the end of the day, eat our meals, share our stories and just hang out. The TV is here in its cute little nook. Theres warm stone tiles on the floor waiting for the embers from a fire that doesn’t exist. There’s a couple of wrinkly old leather couches that have been in our family for a decade or more, waiting for the warmth from this fire that doesn’t exist. There’s a blank space on a white wall, waiting for the fireplace which you guessed, doesn’t exist. This floor to ceiling whiteness is bright in its blandness. You can’t look past it. It’s a sore thumb and an elephant. I thought I could be patient and wait for the fire, but it turns out I couldn’t, so I decided to paint myself one – a fire that is!

I grabbed myself some packing paper from the garage. I stripped it down, put it on the wall with some command tape and made myself a fire! It’s another wonky drawing, and I love it. (Here’s a secret - a friend told me one of my logs looks like cow poop, can you see it, now I’ve mentioned it?)

This fire is not particularly warm. It doesn't crackle and pop. It doesn’t even move, yet I find myself watching it for no apparent reason. Hubby thinks it's because I'm constantly looking at adding to the painting, looking for ways to fix it or make it better. I think it's because I really want to be watching a real fire, which is why I made it and painted it and put it on this spot on the wall in the first place.

Finally, I have nowhere to hang my Christmas Decorations on this fireplace! Trust me, that’s a thing, but saying that, you know, maybe I will hang some decorations here. Maybe there’s a way, I don’t know yet, but for now let me present to you – my FIRE!