A virtue of ignorance

Another thing Mother said that has stayed with me is that if we knew what was involved in some of life’s major undertakings, we wouldn’t do them. If we knew what was involved in raising children, for instance, we wouldn’t have any! Lately I’ve been applying that concept to home ownership. It was always my dream to have a home of my own, but the dream was remarkably devoid of taxes, insurance, landscaping, septic systems, water woes, critters, gutters, chimneys, plumbing, lightning strikes, and — bringing us up to today — painting.

In all innocence, I figured that painting a small bathroom would be a piece of cake — I who have painted entire apartments. What was I thinking? The preparation alone is so daunting that you might as well just paint the whole interior of the house, by the time you’ve gathered up wall paint, ceiling paint, trim paint, ladders, brushes, rollers, roller handles, colored masking tape, scissors, drop cloths, a paint tray and paint-tray liners. Then comes the masking, the cutting-in, the ritual spilling of paint on a drop cloth and then stepping in it and tracking it around and wondering what all those spots on the floor are. Oh, and the getting of brightly colored wall paint on the just-painted white ceiling. At some point in all of this I decided that even parenting had been easier than painting.

But just think: Would I have taken up French if I had known I would end up papering my ceiling with irregular verbs so that even in bed I was studying? Would I have spent six and a half years in graduate school studying writing, while also working and being a single parent, if I had known that I might never even write a novel? Would I have been a flight attendant if I’d known I would pick up a wicked fungus in Iran that would plague me for decades?

Our ignorance saves us — and that was what my mother’s Mona Lisa smile was all about. We are well built for the vicissitudes of life, most of us, and all it takes to get us into the water and swimming like mad is ignorance (or forgetfulness). If we knew how things would turn out, we’d still be hugging the shore, and we’d have missed the whole wacky and wonderful trip! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put a second coat of paint on those bathroom walls.

Susan Harper is retired, lives in Commerce and volunteers for the Commerce Library Board and the Jackson County Literacy Program.