My chair...

I just finished painting a chair. There's nothing spectacular about that surely. But for me it helped in so many ways. First of all I know nothing of painting or chairs except that you need a brush for the first and a seat for the second! So when I thought I was fed up of the ratty looking old cane chair relegated to the back portico, I decided to just go ahead and do something about it. Off I went to the hardware store where I got some sandpaper, paint, thinner and a brush. The brush was not the absolute right size but that was all they had. The chap didn't know if I would need wood primer for an old chair and was confused when I asked. One obliging customer in the shop told me I didn't need it - and I thought it didn’t matter -at least the chair should be usable for a while longer and its an experiment at best. I wasn't sure about the varnish and reasoned that it could only be applied after the paint and so deferred its purchase.

Then I got home and pulled out the old chair to have a good look. It was faded, bleached a washed out color because of all the sun that hit it. Black discolorations suffused the back of the chair which had intricate crisscrossing patterns. I tried my best to sandpaper out the black mould but most of it still stuck and the back of the chair was too impenetrable to my scrubbing. So I decided to simply paint it as is. I started off and soon began to enjoy myself thoroughly. It took me 3 days to finish one coat since I devoted only an hour or two to it everyday. But already the chair was looking so much better. With added zeal I put on another coat of paint and the chair was magically transformed. I wanted to make it perfect and spent hours making sure every spot; every twist of the twined rope, every crevice in the patterned back was touched with paint. The chair looked absolutely wonderful to my eyes – I reveled in the sight of it.

The whole point I am trying to make here is that the medium was immaterial; it was the action that got me results. I have always been afraid that I could never finish what I started. My initial enthusiasm and passion wanes faster than a sprig of jasmine. I am always afraid of making mistakes. But this time I simply took on a new task without thought of success or failure – I would simply do it. I also finished the task to perfection with not a drop of paint on my portico tiles. It felt very good – a simple thing in truth but an eye-opener for me to let myself be and do anything that comes naturally and to do so without the fear and anticipation of failure.