Painting the Purple House

I don’t know how long The Purple House has had that name. My landlady, Elizabeth, told me that when she tried to purchase it fifteen years ago, she encountered substantial resistance. Finally someone told her that she should write to the mayor and promise to keep the house painted purple forever. She wrote the letter, and the resistance vanished. In Isabel II, the one and only town on the island, I never need to tell anyone my address. I simply say that I live in the Purple House and that is sufficient. Just between you and me, I think it looks more blue than purple. But, if you repeat that to anyone in Vieques, I’ll deny it.

La Casa Violeta is getting painted on its south wall. That’s the side that receives most of the sun and nearly all of the hard-driving rain that rushes through my open window and blasts me at my desk ten feet away. Of course, by the time I can get up and crank all the louvers closed, the rain has stopped. I don’t bother anymore. Everything dries quickly enough.

But that large side wall is the most visible part of the house and it looked neglected; large patches of paint appeared to have been sand-blasted off. Elizabeth promised to get it painted this summer. Three days ago the workers arrived. 

The front half of my lovely studio apartment has windows on all three sides; there are none in the back half where the bed is, and now the ceiling fan can’t cool it enough for comfortable sleeping. When this summer became the summer of “Excessive Heat Warnings,” I began sleeping on the futon in front. I don’t open it, just stretch out on the sloping seat of it with my floor fan aimed at me to reinforce the ceiling fan and the open windows. This way I can sleep much of the night without sweating. It’s too hot to cover myself even with a sheet, so there I lie in my undies and tee shirt. And that’s private enough. I get up at eight or eight thirty and stumble to the back half of my house to shower and dress. By the time there are any people on the street I’m dressed and presentable. 

Usually.

My last tutoring class ends at eleven. I send out homework, study the app that shows me all the weather in the Atlantic, say some prayers, and try to get to bed by midnight, but often there are emails and texts to handle from students and potential students so that it is more nearly one in the morning before I get to close my eyes. I relish staying in bed at least until eight. At that I need an afternoon nap to compensate for not quite enough sleep most nights.

The painting crew arrived promptly at seven, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, talked to me through the window, and ordered me to close all my windows on that side of the house so they could pressure-wash. I rushed to my bedroom, threw a dress over my sleep-wear and rushed out again to close windows, then I closed the tiny one in the bathroom, took a short shower, dressed and left home with my dog. With no fresh air entering from the side of the prevailing wind, the apartment was stifling. 

I stayed away at D’Frozz, which thankfully opens at seven, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, handling emails and texts, reading news, and then listening to the morning rosary with my AirPods, even though I had to keep my mouth shut. I caught some more morning decrees, bought another coffee, read a book for a while, and stayed as long as I dared, hopeful it would be all over when I returned. 

It wasn’t.

Three coffees were two too many. No afternoon nap for me. I tried hard to get to bed early, but it was after one when I got to sleep.

I got up at 6:55 and ran to throw something over my dishabille. “Do you want me to close the windows?” “No.”

I dressed and returned to D’Frozz, so sleepy, uncomfortable with three grinning young men staring in at me every time they came near the window. I had no energy, no motivation. I’ve never been a morning person and it seems that my brain never comes online until at least ten. I sat sipping coffee and reading a novel, having promised myself that at nine I’d catch the rosary. At nine thirty I glanced at my watch to see if it was time yet. Oops. I read until I felt that surely they must have finished the whole job. 

Nope. All the parts around my windows had not been painted!

This morning the painter’s truck pulled to the curb at seven exactly. I jumped up, threw something over my head and rushed back. “Close all your windows, please.” I did.

The nap yesterday had helped; I’m tired, really tired, but not sleepy, and I’ve worked through exhaustion before. So this morning, at D’Frozz, I wrote. I didn’t even attempt a silent rosary; even without speaking, that takes energy. Writing is cerebral and emotional; it’s my time to be “in the zone.” I needed this private time.

They must be done by now.