The Man in the Middle writes our new blog series. Musings from a middle-aged man living with his aged Mother and the Family.
I am hanging Motherโs paintings and pictures in my study. The study smells of drying paint and I have a headache. I am not sure if the ache is because of the paintโs volatile organic compounds or because I canโt hang a single painting straight.
Iโm peeved because Iโm not even winging it like I normally do with household chores. Iโve watched a Wickes’ DIY video on how to hang pictures twice and bought a new tape measure, plugs, picture wire and a hammer. Iโm locked and loaded. Iโve even put a pencil behind my ear like the guy in the video to get me into the role like a Method actor. But after four hours only three small pictures are actually on the wall.
โYouโre not a natural at this DIY thing, are you?โ says Wife from the doorway. โYou hang pictures like Jackson Pollock paints โ randomly.โ
I feel a manly urge to dispute this. But sheโs right. Thereโs no rhyme or reason to the way the pictures are hanging.
โI didnโt want it to look formal,โ I say lamely.
She has called time on solo living
The reason I am hanging Motherโs pictures on my study walls is because she moves in next week. She has called time on solo living.ย It is the end of hesitation and the start of something new, though none of us is quite sure what. My study is becoming her bedroom.
To make it feel like herย room, Iโm hanging her pictures and photographs collected over many years and homes.ย Many of the photographs are from a shared past: now departed aunts, uncles, and godparents. Others are of people, who played a part in her life, which I can only guess at.ย Theyโre from an age when men polished their shoes in the evenings and women smoked through cigarette holders with pursued lips.
โCigarette holders came in different lengths for different situations: one for the theatre, one for dinner and so on. It was a more elegant age,โ she says pointing at a photograph of my father lighting a cigarette for her. Theyโre in a sitting room at a party in a place she can no longer remember.
Tough choices have to be made
The study walls are too small to curate an entire life, of course. Tough choices have to be made. How many pictures to hang of the grandchildren versus husband? Is a photograph of our wedding day necessary when there are so many elsewhere in the house? Should every decade of life get a showing? Making these choices is stressing everyone and I am feeling more like an insensitive curator of an exhibition than a caring son.
Choosing the pictures for her bedroom is a small challenge compared to the sorting the rest of her possessions, though. We have agreed a plan to sort things into three groups: Keep, Donation and Dump. But the categories keep getting redefined. Overnight some piles grow, some shrink. Itโs a border without customs controls. Iโve booked a small van to bring her stuff over in two days. At this rate, Iโll need to hire a lorry instead. The whole house will be full of her stuff and tip from aย shared home into a Museum for Mother. I wonder if Wickes has a video, which will help me?
ยฉ The Man in the Middle
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