After my husband’s death, I papered over my grief with posters and pictures. No more | Kat Lister

Last autumn, I pared back the clutter to face the white walls of my flat in the bright light of day. It was the start of a more guilt-free approach to healing

When Jenny Diski decided she would journey to Antarctica, she did so with the four walls of her bedroom in mind. White walls, icy mirrors, white sheets and pillowcases, white slatted blinds," the author wrote in her late-1990s travelogue, Skating to Antarctica. Opposite my bed, in the very small room, a wall of mirrored cupboards reflects the whiteness back at itself, making it twice the size it thought it was."

This gave her a pure moment of gratification each morning, and a feeling of expansiveness. A boundless feeling that, when she traced it back, had emerged among the white hospital sheets of London's Maudsley psychiatric unit, where she had been a patient at the age of 21.

Kat Lister is the author of The Elements: A Widowhood

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