It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black: acceptance, loving appreciation of a life lived well these are hard to experience when anger, rage, the black snarl of a savage dog you barely recognise, twists your ordinarily mild mind into perverted, distorted shapes. Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts: avoidance, the fluffy cloud hovering overhead, while the desire to disappear and 'fade away' beats in your metronome heart, like the rhythmic strumming of this song. I look inside myself and see my heart is black: an agonising death is dealt slowly, with suffering and red-eyed terror at the injustice of losing speech, movement, dignity. Like a newborn baby it just happens every day: at the hospital, we are expected to celebrate life, enjoy the fact that ‘life goes on’. I felt workplace pressure to politely tick my acceptance of two days' compassionate leave on an impersonal form, then 'get on with it'. Everything dies, but my feelings could not fit into a neat box. I see people turn their heads and quickly look away: grief is not embraced it is shunned, like the homeless, unhinged for endless, unique reasons. I see a line of cars and they're all painted black: colours slip away and the blackness of my mood, my mind, filled with unkind thoughts and formless rage, trigger my shivering in an overly-warm room. I've witnessed death previously, but the cruelty of Grandma’s strong farmer's hands disappearing into paper-thin veins is agony to me.
![paint it black tour of duty paint it black tour of duty](http://image.cdn.ispot.tv/ad/AZkO/gamestop-call-of-duty-black-ops-iii-large-8.jpg)
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes/I have to turn my head until my darkness goes: the chill, the disgust of looming loss, frighten me. No colours anymore I want them to turn black: the white hospital walls, the disinfectant stench, the ocean view meant to calm and soothe - the shadows converge and I want the world black. I see a red door and I want it painted black: red, my favourite colour, becomes an insult in a world so awry. Not surprisingly it was not the type of music that she cared for or understood.īut the song became my anthem on long commutes between Melbourne (where I worked), Ballarat (where I lived) and Warrnambool, then Koroit (where I visited Grandma). I tried to get Grandma to listen to it when I discovered it, via the theme song to Tour Of Duty my Dad's favourite show. The tension and energy of Paint It Black resonates for me. She would have called that ‘noise’, of course. How soothed she looked it made me think of the quiet comfort music has provided me, and the raucous joy of music so loud our bodies vibrate with its energy, the tawny thrum of possibility and the screech of wailing guitars! Her hands would lift in gentle motion, like the church conductors she had watched for more than 90 years. Playing the hymns she loved best (including The Old Rugged Cross and Amazing Grace) became the easiest way to convey care for her withered, wasting body. The final connection she had centred on was music. My maternal grandma, Ivy May Houston, born Ivy May Chappell died July 10, 2009.
![paint it black tour of duty paint it black tour of duty](http://masses.com.my/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/TIMEX_X_CROSSOVER-Lookbook-4-768x512.jpg)
A nursing home i n Koroit, April to July 2009