Yellow and Blue Hues

The short story The Yellow Wallpaper made sense to Ingrid. Certainly, she was not confined to a nursery with nothing to do for months at a time. She was merely confined to her home.  There were modern distractions such as her phone and the TV, not to mention her daily 500 milliliters of wine, but those distractions did not make her monotonous days any less long.

She wasn’t necessarily going mad like the protagonist in the story, though some days she felt she might. It was the inescapable feeling that she was wasting her life, and simply biding her time until her death.  That she’d wasted her youth.  Now she sat thirty-seven, no children and no career.

It wasn’t as though her life had always been this way.  Before her nervous breakdown she’d had a career.  She had not always been a bored housewife. Sure, she had hated her job, but it filled some void and kept her busy.  At least then she had a purpose.  Now she sat and waited.  Waited for her husband to come home, waited for death; just waiting, waiting, and waiting.

Her depression and anxiety kept her paralyzed some days.  The house would be a mess and remain so.  At times it took every ounce of her energy to force herself to prepare a meal for her husband.  The countless hours she spent on her phone attempting to distract herself only served to make her feel emptier and more defeated.  The housework piled up, the laundry went unfolded.

Her husband was at his wits end.  He’d tried everything to help her snap out of it.  He’d taken time off from work, constantly reassured her of his love, and was always there steady and unwavering.  This weekend was yet another attempt by him to help her.  He had arranged a three day stay at an idyllic little cottage in the mountains.

Ingrid stood outside of the small stone cottage and admired its fairy tale charm.  Wisteria covered the front of the abode.  The front door was round and painted a beautiful shade of lavender.  There was a large weeping willow tree in the yard.  Woods surrounded the yard and gave the cottage plenty of privacy.

For a moment she was so caught up in the ethereal beauty of the place, she forgot about her empty womb, and her self-doubt.  It was a blissful moment.  The spell was broken with the sound of the door creaking open.  

“What do you think darling?”  Asked her ever indulgent husband.  

“This place seems almost magical!” Was the reply

“I thought you might like it.  It seemed like a good place for you to start writing that novel you always wanted to write.  Maybe it will get your creative juices circulating. I brought your computer for you.”

She kissed him deeply and appreciatively.  At times she wondered what she had done to deserve such a wonderful and supportive man.  He was by far the best thing that had ever happened to her.  

The place had a wonderful feeling about it.  She felt almost happy.  Her life didn’t feel mundane or commonplace for the moment.  The laundry pile at home was forgotten; so was her boredom.

They made dinner together and ate it on the covered porch as a storm rolled in. Her thoughts were in the moment.  She wasn’t questioning her life, or whether or not she wanted to have a baby.  She wasn’t wondering if her desire to have a baby was born from her boredom, or her not knowing what to do with herself, or both? Nor was she wondering if she could even have a baby at her age; was it wise to have one considering her issues with depression? 

Those questions dissipated the moment she walked through the door.  Ingrid felt alive for the very first time in a long time.  Her attention was completely on her food, the storm, her husband.  She was in the moment. It felt good to be alive for the first time in a long time. Her food tasted better; she felt better.

After dinner they cleaned up the kitchen.  He read a book while she stared off into the distance attempting to dredge up something to write about.  Something wonderful and dreamy.  Something happy and exciting.  

She felt she could write in this magical feeling place.  Even her husband’s tired and drawn look disappeared here.  She dreamily watched as the firelight danced merrily on the walls, casting shadows.  Outside a storm raged as she began to write furiously and fervently. There was no writers block in this enchanted place.  No thoughts of self-doubt or self-deprecation.  

Words flowed out of her and onto the page.  She was not writing for anyone else, she was writing for herself.  Because she needed too; it was a long forgotten part of herself.  The muses smiled on this place.  They smiled on her as she wrote into the night.  

Sentences formed, then paragraphs, then pages.  They flowed from her the way water flows from a river.  It didn’t matter that the punctuation was not perfect, or that some sentences needed to be restructured.  The ideas were there and pouring out of her.  It was as though she could think and feel outside of the complacent haze her antidepressant medication put her in, for the first time in a long while.  

Ingrid reluctantly crawled into bed at three in the morning.  She was exhausted, her hands were cramped and her back ached.  But she felt genuinely happy. Her husband sleepily rolled over and uttered “I love you.”  Before kissing her gently and drifting back to sleep.

She smiled at the ceiling.  Excitement coursed through her body.  Ingrid hoped that her momentum would last through tomorrow.  She sleepily wondered if now that she’d found her inner voice she’d be able to write at home?  A comforting and warm feeling arose in her heart.  Somehow she knew with a still and steady surety that she would.  

She quickly fell asleep without categorizing her embarrassing moments, or wondering what she should do.  She was exhausted from her toil.  No nightmares plagued her.  She slept with a smile on her face.  The world made sense to her once more.  She did not relate to The Yellow Wallpaper for the moment.