When I was about seven years old someone gave me a box of water paints – the typical small box with about ten little blocks of colours. This was probably in 1946, just after the end of the Second World War, which we had spent in the Netherlands; the paint-box may have been included in a “relief” parcel sent by American friends of my parents (“We’ll add a toy or two for the children”) because I doubt very much whether such a thing was available at that time in that war-devastated country.
My father, home again after having spent the last three of the war years in a prisoner-of-war camp, showed me how to use the paints – for instance, how to blend the blue with white to produce the colour of the sky. I discovered how much white was needed in comparison with the small amount of blue, and I realized that the little white block would be used up much more quickly than the other colours, and that – in the conditions of the time – I would never be able to replace it. It was a devastating discovery and, as I seem to remember, it pretty well spoiled my pleasure in the paints.
Using things up and not being able to replace them: this cause of anxiety was by then a central element of my image of the world. It had been drilled into me by the war-time conditions. Food was short: “That’s all the bread there is for now, darling, but you can have a bit more of the rye soup.” (“For now” might mean until next week, or whenever my mother was again able to scrounge something from which to make bread.) There was no clothing to be bought, so my mother was constantly cutting up and re-sewing her own and her husband’s clothes for us children or bartering with neighbouring mothers who had children of different ages.
The effect of that strand of experience – the irreplaceability of most things – has run through my whole life. When I was teaching in Toronto and lost a favourite pen I dealt with the resulting (and entirely disproportionate) anxiety by going as soon as possible to buy another. I found a kind of shoe that I liked and, before the style was no longer available, I bought two more pairs. With certain “treat” foods, I always have a couple of extra packages (or four or five?) on hand in case ….
Like many writers, I love notebooks but when I’ve bought one I put it away because it’s too precious to use. I now forbid myself from buying any more, and I worry about whether and how, in my few remaining years, I will be able to use up the ones I already have.
For nearly eighty years a voice inside me has been saying, “Don’t use it all because it’s so precious and irreplaceable!” – and, even worse, “Don’t use it at all!”
Nearly eighty years after I received that first paint-box I’ve now decided to try water-colour painting again – a mental-health activity for my old age – but I vividly remember the “white paint” issue and even before buying a set of colours I made sure that I would be able to buy more white paint. Yes, little tubes of every colour are individually available, and, yes, I can buy as many tubes of white as I want. So I can let myself paint again, and enjoy it without worrying about running out of the white.
Of course this is not just about paint or notebooks or shoes. It’s about war and especially about children. For the sake of my mental health I can no longer bear to keep informed about the world’s wars but I know that there are millions of children who, day after day, are being imprinted with experiences that will shape (or distort) their future lives, affect their work and their relationships, and probably be part of the emotional burden that, every morning, they will wake up to and resume.
© Marianne Brandis, 2024.