“Do ’Gain!”

When our older son, Anton, was little, like most kids, he would revel in repeating the same action. “Do ’gain! Do ’gain!” he would exhort us if we had done something that made him laugh, or if we swung him around in a circle, or if we had taken a train ride together.  

Like most adults around small children, seeing their joy made it easy for us to want to do something a second time, maybe even a third. Sometimes, after the third or fourth time, our joy would diminish even as his joy kept going. How many times in a row can you make a Thomas train engine fall from the wooden tracks on the living room floor, for example, and have it bring joy? For a small child, that number can sometimes be much higher (15? 20 times?) than it is for an adult.  

The third or fourth time around, I had to strive a little harder to find joy in the moment. I had to work to truly see Anton’s enthusiasm, to be in the moment, so that I could enjoy it too. Although that became more work, it was also always worth it. I don’t regret making the choice in those instances to strive to find pleasure in repeating the same activity. 

I thought of Anton’s early enthusiasm for repeating activities recently as Jason and I started a re-wallpapering project. We live in a Queen-Anne style Victorian home built in 1881. We both love all things Victorian and want to create an internal environment that celebrates the design aesthetics of that era. (We also insist on modern plumbing, electricity, Wi-Fi, and other conveniences, for the record.)  

One of our passions is hanging authentic reproduction wallpaper patterns. This is the old-school, you put the paste on, you trim the edges yourselves kind of wallpaper. It’s a labor of love, for sure. We've spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on many projects in our home and over the last several years we’ve become expert paper hangers. The work requires precision, artistry, teamwork, and creativity all at once. 

That’s me in a Victorian-style dress on the right. Normally, we have more furniture in this space too!

Last year, we tackled our front parlor. We spent a lot of time removing old layers, prepping the walls, building scaffolding so we could complete the intricate ceiling paper design (completed with the help of now-teenage Anton), and hanging three patterns on each of the walls: the frieze up top, the dado down below, and the wall fill in between. Hanging each piece involves some stress, but also great joy. And after each piece is hung, we step back to bask—to see it come together, to marvel at how it transforms the space.  

When the room was done, it was glorious. There was much time spent basking.  

And then, unlike in other wallpaper projects we have completed, parts started to fail. Sections started to peel away from the wall, shrink up in ways we’ve never seen, and fall away. On two truly awful evenings, we literally heard the paper rip as the stresses and strains pulled it away from the wall and apart.  

There were tears. There was unnecessary but understandable shame. There was an acceptance that we would have to do it all again. 

We consulted national experts—there aren’t a lot of people who know a lot about hanging this type of wallpaper anymore—and they offered sympathy, saying this happens sometimes. Turns out the wall prep we had done, the particular product we had used, didn’t work. The wall hadn’t completely sealed and so it rejected the glue and the paper came off.  

Then we waited a few months, unable emotionally to tackle this project again. We gave thanks that the ceiling papers stuck. Our lack of a thorough surface preparation there turned out to work in our favor. We reordered the hand screen-printed paper for the walls. And we decided to “do ’gain.”  

Here I am, trying to be goofy, pretending to come out from behind the wallpaper…

Now we want to find a way to encounter joy in that re-doing. It isn’t easy, but the alternative—to do it again in bitterness, anger, and frustration—doesn't seem like much fun. So as we pulled away the paper from the wall in huge sheets, we celebrated how much easier it is to do that than the usual scoring, steaming, and scraping involved in removing wallpaper. We took photos where it looks like I’m somehow peering out from inside the wall, referencing to each other the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. As we begin to “do ’gain” the papering, we enjoy our time together talking and we bask after each piece we hang. It will take months to complete again. When it’s done it will be glorious. In the doing again we will encounter (or make) moments of joy.  

It reminds me of the joy I try to encounter when I revise my writing, when I redo that which I already did, sometimes more than once. I enjoy writing a first draft, the one where you just let all the words and ideas pour out with little judgment. I take pleasure in revising—moving things around, deleting a paragraph, adding a new description. I enjoy editing—finding the better word, looking for the errant comma.  

Years ago, I handed off a draft of my memoir to a writing coach for review. I had spent hundreds of hours drafting, revising, and editing my memoir by that point. I was terrified and excited to hear what she would say. With great kindness and wisdom, she shared with me my draft’s strengths and weaknesses: my essays were well-structured, insightful, and poignant; at the same time, readers had no way to feel a part of my experiences. In her expert opinion, I needed to rewrite the memoir, crafting narratives, putting the reader in the moment with me.  

There were tears. There was unnecessary but understandable shame. There was an acceptance that I would have to “do ’gain.” 

Unlike with our wallpaper, I had choices. I could stop, leave it as it was, put it away and know I’d gained some insights for myself from writing what I had. I could take essay pieces and put them out in the world for readers. Or I could start again.  

So I spent hundreds of hours putting myself, and my potential reader, in moments from my past. I drafted again, revised again, and edited again and again. I kept some pieces and decided to create a back-and-forth structure, alternating narratives that start early in childhood and go through adulthood with essays that start after my dad’s death and move towards the present moment. I consulted more writing coaches, tearing up pages and pages and pages along the way. 

Just as Jason and I are striving to do with the wallpaper, I worked to find joy in this creative redoing. I worked to find construction within destruction. I took time to bask at the pieces.  

Jason and I on scaffolding, working to wallpaper the front parlor

Something ties all three of these experiences together in my mind. Whether I remember being an exhausted parent, an uncertain writer, or a disappointed paper hanger, I reflect on how all three have taught me that at my best, I choose to find joy in doing creative things again. Whether I am finding a way to make a small child laugh or be entertained, looking for a phrase that might best express my idea or feeling, or creating pattern matches in wallpaper for a seamless look, I am in touch with a creative spirit in me. If I listen to that creative spirit, connect with it deeply, how can I not find some joy? In a life full of stress, deadlines, insecurities, worries, and anxieties, I want and need to work a little harder to find that childlike joy in repeating something that brings pleasure.  

I believe we all need to strive towards finding the kind of joy that comes from connecting deeply with creativity. Most importantly, I think we need to try to find it in the re-doing of things. What would it be like if we let go more quickly of the tears and shame we feel, unnecessarily but understandably, when we see an error in what we have created? Whether we are fixing an engine, knitting a scarf, building a cabinet, writing a short story, fostering a friendship, or cooking a meal, we all make mistakes or need to start again. How might we, in those moments of realization that we took a wrong turn, take a deep breath, feel the creative spirit vibrant within us, and resolve to find a child’s joy as we “do ’gain”?