Notes on Painting and Place – Loule and Mompos

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The sun beats down, I am probably getting sunstroke up here on the roof, but I am not here, I am transported back 18 years to another rooftop in another continent. My father is watching from below in the shade, redirecting me over a patch that I have missed.

People talk of the qualities of music, smells and food that remind you or take you back to a distant memory. At the moment, for me, it is a similar experience that has me in a somber and reflective mood.

My Ipod is in, I have a large-brimmed vueltiao atop my head that is going some way to keeping the sun of my distinctly northern hemisphere skin but the near equatorial sun has found its way through onto my neck. I don’t care.

Neil Young’s nasal rock, his latest offering, is keeping me upright, and my arm has yet to tire as I make the same repetitive movements with the paintbrush. Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow on water stains and dirt. Of course, the house is called La Casa Amarilla, so it has to be yellow.

Several months of rain and no summer has taken its toll on this colonial house. There has been no point painting the roof terrace earlier, it would only stain and run. Now the dragonflies have come in their droves signaling summer and a respite from the deluges. There’ll be a few more heavy rains, but nothing like before.

I am 16 years old in my memory, on the tiled rooftops of our old house in southern Portugal, the Quinta das Amendoeiras, the House of the Almond Trees. In this house I spent many summers, many winters in fact as well and it was here at the gate that I was first bitten by a dog.

Above the pool my parents used to let me and my friends camp out at night. I am reflective on this last point right now. I remember my parents offering this option and I thought they were the best. Really it was because we had too many guests and they needed the space.

The most memorable summer was when a school friend Julian and his family came out. We camped, made dens, bows and arrows and of course, tormented our parents cementing a firm friendship. We must have been all of 12 years old. Julian committed suicide towards the end of last year. We had drifted apart. I don’t know why he did it. I don’t want to know how. My other old school friends know, they won’t tell me.

My brush covers another weak patch.

Bruce Springsteen comes on, later Credence and then for good measure, the Rolling Stones. The roof terrace here in Mompos, Colombia is taking shape again and it has to, we have travel agents coming through and the season is picking up after the momentous nationwide floods.

My father had a protestant work ethic. I have been sent to the roof aged 16 to whitewash every wall. It is hot up here, but not as hot as in Colombia. I recall asking for my pay…snotty 16 year old. My father replies with a smile that in lieu of pay I get room and board.

Happy times on the rooftop in Portugal. Care-free. Momentarily my thoughts here in Mompos drift back to Loule, Portugal and I allow myself to feel as if back then. Then I return to the present. The season has been terrible, the floods have affected tourism severely and tiring of waiting for the painter I have come up here to do the job myself to prove that it can be done. My stubbornness results in me getting sick. But, I showed them.

And the roof terrace looks good.