By MARIANNE WOOD

Sometimes, you must admit out loud or at least in a private journal, saying what you don’t like and do like. It’s cathartic. I’m going public with one of mine.

I’m not too fond of flocked wallpaper. Invented initially to imitate expensive cut velvet hangings, flock wallpaper (or “flocked” as we say in Texas) gives me the creeps. It always has. It’s created by adding a waste product from cloth. Gross. Furthermore, have you ever noticed how dust clings to it? It makes a room feel claustrophobic. But you may like it. Or love it. And that’s great.

And I have other preferences just like you. I recommend you consider why some things appeal, and others disgust you. Detect and inspect them. Here, I’m talking about the easy stuff. Favorite and disgusting food, movies, and books. I have a point to make.

Enduring loss can heighten awareness of our preferences. They rise from the ground of one’s heart like weeds after a summer rain. Underneath the weight of numbness that grief causes, some become potential annoyances that feel like the pea the princess slept on in Once Upon a Mattress. (Now I’m imagining Carol Burnet in the television adaptation, and I’m smiling.) Negative attractions like a tendency to panic, overeat, fail to eat, etc., may need tending or excising. It is good to pay attention.

When we lived in Philadelphia, albeit briefly, I chose furnishings that gave me a lift, like those from Marimekko. Marimekko designs began to arrive in my world in the 1960s, though Vilio and Armi Rata founded this Finnish textile company in 1951. Their brightly colored simple patterns, particularly “Unikko,” which means “poppy,” designed by Maija Isola in 1964, is my favorite. The red version wallpapers my phone and brightened our bed during the sad months leading up to our daughter’s death in the adjacent room. 

Grief can help us find joy in everyday things, like wallpaper for your home and electronics. But of course, the wallpaper for our minds is most important. I credit Beth Moore for her encouragement to see that in II Corinthians 10:3-5.

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

So, my husband and I will replace the depressingly black appliances and countertops that came with our home over a decade ago. I will make a new and better playlist for my phone. I will continue practicing the best habits I know. And I if I ever get to visit the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, I will be careful not to pick at the walls. I promise.

Marianne Wood works as an editorial assistant and researcher for Bill Wright