By Don Tassone

I’d been congested and coughing all day when my wife suggested I take a Covid test.

“Nobody tests anymore,” I said.

“But if you’ve got it, you’ll spread it,” she said.

I knew she was right.  I had a week full of meetings and events ahead.  I didn’t want to cancel anything, but I didn’t want to infect anyone either.

So I took the test.  It was positive.

I cancelled my appointments for the week.  Suddenly, I was homebound with an open calendar.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

Then an idea came to mind.  A few days earlier, I’d heard Don McLeans’s “Starry, Starry Night” on the radio.  It was still playing in my head.  It made me think of van Gogh’s famous painting.  And that made me think of the paint by numbers I did as a kid.  Maybe I should do one now to pass the time, I thought.

So I went online, found a paint by number of “The Starry Night” and ordered it.  It arrived in a long, thin box the following day.

I cleared the dining room table and opened the box.  Tucked inside were a 16 by 20-inch rolled-up canvas, instructions, strips of little plastic paint pots, several brushes and a little poster of the finished painting to use as a guide.

I was surprised there were so many numbered sections:  1,205.  I hadn’t noticed that online.  This was a lot more involved and advanced than the paint by numbers I did as a kid.  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, I thought.

I read the instructions.  They laid out the process in a simple, orderly fashion:  paint in sections, top to bottom, left to right, light colors to dark.  They also included “pro tips.”

The first tip was to tape down the edges of the canvas on a flat surface.  I grabbed a roll of masking tape and did that.  Seeing the whole gamut of tiny numbered sections made my task seem even more daunting.

For a moment, I felt an urge to stuff everything back in the box and return it.  But then what would I do all week?

I popped open the little paint cup stamped “1.”  White.  I checked out all the “1” sections in the upper left corner of the canvas, selected the smallest-tipped brush and dipped it in.  Then I slowly lowered the tip of the brush to a small section near the corner and began to fill it in.

I tried to stay inside the lines.  But after only a few strokes, my brush strayed into a different section.

In that moment, I was transported back to my childhood and an experience I had nearly forgotten.

When I was six years old, my mother bought me a paint-by-number kit.  It was an autumn scene filled with trees bursting with color. 

She set up a card table in my bedroom, laid out the contents of the kit and brought in a small glass of water so I could clean my brush between colors.  She told me what to do, then left me to paint on my own.

But as soon as I started painting, I screwed up.  I couldn’t stay inside the lines, and the colors began to run together.  

I pounded my fist on the table and stood up fast, knocking my chair over.  Through tears, I glared down at my awful handiwork.

“I can’t do this!” I yelled.

I grabbed the cardboard canvas, tore it in half and stuffed it in my trash can.

My mother must have heard all the commotion because she came back into my room.  I was sitting on my bed, crying.

She sat down next to me.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“I can’t paint!”

“Why do you say that?”

I told her what had happened.  I thought she’d be upset.  Instead, she said, “You don’t have to stay inside the lines, you know.  Artists blend colors.  They blend everything.  That’s what makes their paintings so beautiful.”

If I’d been older, I might have thought she was just saying that to make me feel better.  But I took her words to heart.

“Do you want to try another painting sometime?” she said.

“Maybe,” I said, sniffing.

“Well, whenever you’d like, we can go to the store and pick one out.”

A few days later, we went to Kmart, and I picked out a new paint-by-number kit:  a spring scene with lots of blossoms and flowers.

When we got home, my mother helped me get set up again.  Then, once again, she left my room.

I sat down and began to paint.  This time, though, I didn’t get flustered when my brush strayed outside the lines.  

A few days later, I finished that painting, which I proudly showed my family.  My mother framed it, and together we hung it on my bedroom wall.

*

Now I scanned the nearly blank canvas on my dining room table, then studied the poster of the finished painting.

I remembered reading a story about van Gogh painting “The Starry Night” after looking out the window from his room in an asylum and seeing a large morning star.  He wasn’t allowed to paint in his room, so he began painting the star he’d seen in a studio, without the view for reference.  The result was a dream-like image, a combination of elements real and imagined.

I thought about my life.  I never imagined I’d be so successful in the corporate world.  Many of my colleagues have been smarter than me.  But unlike most of them, I’ve always been able to navigate ambiguity, and that has made all the difference.

“Artists blend everything.”  All my life, I’ve heard my mother’s voice and felt her loving presence.

I finished all the “1” sections, with white paint bleeding beyond many of the lines, and moved onto “2.”  Blue, my mother’s favorite color.

                                                                  *   *   *

Don Tassone is the author of two novels and eight short story collections.  He lives in Loveland, Ohio.