A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
Virginia Woolf
The above quote has become somewhat of a cliche. In fact, I’ve seen it trounced about in the papers twice in the past two weeks on various different subjects. Just exchange “Fiction” to anything from “scrapbooking” to “studying” to “sewing” to whatever, it’s an undeniably contextually mouldable idea. In a perfect world.
Women tend to drag it out at times of flux or transition; as if they need to quantify their changeability, if such excuses were necessary (as they often tend to be). However it is a somewhat tired rubric, I think, now.
Still, I find myself at a loss to come up with an original caption to describe the following:
Yes, this is what counts as my own piece of space in our ever-claustrophobic household. Last week, over a two-day period, I turfed clothing, re-located Christmas ornaments and lonely, unused luggage to the garage; I manoeuvred furniture without causing bodily harm to either myself or my children. I did it all with the prayer in my mind, “Please let the table fit. Please let me have this place where I can shut the door.”
As you can see, I’ve set it up with all my blogging/ writing accoutrements. It’s not what I’d call an office; it’s not much of what I’d call anything, really.
But it’s mine and who knows what may be achieved in here. Oh, the dreams I can dream; magic made tangible from the ether of mothballs and the remnants of boot-polish and dry-cleaning chemicals.
Or I could just get high off them.
That could be good too.
*Please, just on a writerly note, I am fully aware of how many compound adjectives I used in this post. Just so you know, and you know I know.
Cross posted @ BlogRhet. If you would like to comment, please come on over.
