Nude walls

The room where my granny spent most of her time was now so quiet that if you stood still you could hear the silence. If you moved, a percussion of small creaks ruffled it. No furniture was left. No rugs nor mats. The wooden floor had become a mosaic of over-trodden, worn, hollowed routes, rich in patina, and the now exposed boards, hidden for years beneath dark chests, ottomans and dressers. Then,
the nude walls. Where once hung myriad framed prints, engravings, watercolours, photographs of great-aunts, clocks and calendars, were bare rectangles of unfaded wallpaper, now displaying their original stripes of polite greys, pinks and sage.
As my eyes travel slowly over the gallery of shapes, I stop at one square that enriched this little girl’s imagination. This world of colours and patterns and letters and birds and leaves and wonder became mine. It asked so many questions and gave so few answers. And as I grew to eye-level, I read the words ‘Rural Hours by a Lady’ and wished and wished I could be that lady.