My Memory Palace Was Painted Blue and Green

“Blue and green,” I told my mom in 2006 when she surprised me with the news that I could redo my bedroom and asked me what colors I wanted to paint the walls.

Of course, I wanted to say pink and green (with zebra stripe accents) because that’s what my sister was doing next door. But she would kill me, and even at the age of 7 I knew I couldn’t be that overt with my complete and utter adoration of her.

In true early 2000s fashion, we painted the four walls in my room light blue, light green, light blue, light green — respectively. My mom played her mixed CDs in my silver boom box and she let me use the roller if I promised to be careful and let her load the paint onto it first.

She had been mentally preparing herself to roll right over the Winnie the Pooh scenes she’d hand-painted in that room when Maddy was born. But I told her I wasn’t ready either, so we painted around them and used a sponge to soften the edges where the new paint met the atmosphere of Hundred Acre Wood.

While the paint dried, we sat on the floor among the furniture that was pushed into the middle of the room and sorted through every trinket and book on my shelves — one by one — deciding what to keep and what to let go.

My mom always guided us to be intentional with our belongings and to part with things that don’t hold value anymore — practical or sentimental. She sat with us through the process and acted as a listening ear, but didn’t dare make the decisions for us.

I kept the clay dinosaur I made in kindergarten art class. I donated some books I didn’t like the illustrations in. I kept all the Berenstain Bears stories and Maddy’s Junie B. Jones chapter books I was working up the courage to start reading. I donated my Slinky because we had a better one in the basement. I kept the plastic eagle that had its wings spread wide and was weighted in a way where you could balance it on your finger just by the beak — but I moved it to the bin under my bed ‘cause it wasn’t that cute to look at.

My dad moved the two twin beds out of the room, and I waved goodbye to the chapter of life where I’d slept 3 feet away from my sister every night.

Just a couple years prior, the summer before I was starting Kindergarten and Maddy was going into fourth grade, we spent a night in that room roleplaying with a soft light on when we should have been asleep.

I was terrified of getting on a school bus and going through the lunch line, but Maddy had told me that O’Hara elementary has spaghetti on the lunch menu two Wednesdays out of every month. So I couldn’t pack on those days.

My mom printed out the lunch menu calendar for the first month of school, circled the Spaghetti days, and taped it up in our bedroom.

On this night, my nerves were particularly active and I couldn’t fall asleep. Maddy flicked the lamp on, got out of bed, and told me to “Come ’ere, Pheeb.”

She explained how the lunch line works, pretended to be the lunch lady, and had me practice sliding an imaginary tray through the line and answering the questions I would be asked.

“Spaghetti.”

“Marinara.”

“Fruit juice.”

She explained the layout of the bus and promised me I could squeeze between her and our cousin Zoe on the first day.

When kindergarten started, I got embarrassed that I still said my Rs like Ws.

Laying side by side at night, staring at the ceiling but feeling each other’s company just across the 3 foot gap, I repeated after Maddy:

“Trrrrrrrrruck.”

“Trwrwrwuck.”

“Close!”

Seeing my new full bed dragged into that same room was the first time I’d ever felt profound loneliness and eager independence simultaneously.

Joy prevailed when we made my bed with my new blue and green polkadot duvet. My frog pillow matched it perfectly. I felt like a queen when I got into bed that night.

I made sure to sleep exactly in the middle, to capitalize on the space and feel an equal amount of excess on either side of me. Without Maddy there, I had made both of my parents check my windows to make sure they were locked. I was on the second floor in a notoriously safe neighborhood.

I had them leave a “crack open” in the pocket door so I could have some proof that the rest of the house still existed while I fell asleep.

“Crack open” became a phrase I repeated to whichever parent tucked me into bed each night as they left the room.

Because I had kept the Winnie the Pooh scenes on the walls, the sliding pocket door still had vines painted across it that I could look at while I monitored the open crack.

Only now do I realize how funny those words are.

That room held stories. If I close my eyes, I can still walk through it and find each one exactly where it happened.

Relics from my childhood live in my well-decorated memory palace.

I’ve loved designing spaces since 2006. Today, it means more to me than color and pattern and balance and contrast. It’s crafting the setting of tomorrow’s memories.

It’s knowing that if walls could talk, you’d hear them if you could remember what colors they wore and the little things they held.

It’s choosing to believe that world-building is just as important in your life’s story as writing the words.

When I’m old and grey, I might not remember the details of most ordinary days, but I’ll remember my blue and green walls. I’ll remember the Winnie the Pooh scenes that stayed up longer than they should have. I’ll remember asking my parents to leave the door “crack open.”

And I’ll remember the childhood bedroom where my sister taught me how to order spaghetti at school.

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