The Room Where I Write

The Room Where I Write

(A Writing Assignment)

The room where I write isn’t even a room at all.  It’s a nook.  A cutout.  A space originally designed to serve a totally different purpose.  When building our house, however, we decided a breakfast gathering place was unnecessary and so now our nook is just that:  a nook.  A desk within two walls.  A desk that houses a Mac, a much-too-large-to-be-new Canon printer, and a whole lot of each one of us. While the nook is one of the smallest areas of the house, it’s one of my favorites.  For like us, our nook reflects a life lived together.  On any given day you will find possessions belonging to any one of us strewn across the desk top.  Today, for instance I see my husband’s two green tubes of Blistex, bought on a ski trip last monday.  I see my daughter’s black spiral Science Fair Journal resting on top of the printer, just waiting for it’s big day tomorrow when it can go to school with her.  Crawling forward from behind the computer is a tangled skein of black cables, looking for work.  Some memory card to read, some Garmin bike computer with newly ridden miles to log.  There are notes from Nora’s school in every color of the rainbow, requesting money for field trips, reminding of upcoming events.    A mug Dave brought me from Sedona.  A mug I never once drank from. It’s too big, too clunky, too heavy.  Instead, it sits here holding red handled scissors, toy wands, pencils that NEVER seem to be sharp when I need one, and even the occasional screwdriver. And last but not least, there are the sticky notes. The yellow ones of mine, the white ones belonging to my daughter, all containing Top-Secret password reminders.  An antiquated security system, for sure, but one we Larsons still rely on.  Except for my husband, who has graduated to online security.  Don’t ask me how he remembers that password.  

  

The nook is mine to use freely from 9:00 to 3:30 on school days, and I can be found here in front of the big, bright window on most of these days along with Cooper, my fifteen-year-old tabby, who, likewise, loves this spot.  He sits on the window sill behind the computer screen warming himself with the heat the machine generates, watching the passersby two floors below, from his bird’s-eye-view.  

This is definitely the perfect place for me to write.  It’s in the kitchen, the heart of the house.  Where all things get done. From meal planning and cooking, to arts and crafts, to science projects.  Even when the ideas fade, the writing slows, I still enjoy sitting here.  For then I check in with the school calendar, which hangs on the wall to my right, keeping me updated on upcoming school holidays, doctor and dental appointments.  And, of course, my daughter’s eighth birthday.  Which is still two months away.  I have no chance of forgetting though.  No reason to be unprepared, as she has kindly placed a hand-written note right on top of the calendar, where I will have NO chance of missing it. The Birthday List for 2013, even comes complete with A Key.  Thus, there is very little doubt that the turtle and the violin are the most highly sought after requests, whilst the blue, toy, baking table and Nerf gun are merely just filler.

When I have been sitting too long, when the old blue throw-pillow upon which I sit just isn’t doing it’s job any longer, I can get up.  I can walk a few steps to the counter, and with the brand new Keurig my Dad just gave me, brew one perfect cup of coffee.  Or I can take even fewer steps to the fridge. I can pull open it’s door, ponder it’s contents, and think surely there must be something I can pull together using these Kalamata olives, smoked salmon and asparagus.

If I don’t feel like getting up, I can simply turn my head to the left and enjoy my “Life With Girls”  photo collage.  This collage, like the nook, started out as something else; a cork-board.  A message center.   But after the addition of a few pictures, it took on a life of its own. There was no rhyme or reason to how these pictures got placed on the wall, they were simply stuck onto an empty spot of cork.  There are pictures of Nora and I at last year’s Science Fair next to this year’s Student of the Month Assembly photo, wherein she and her classmate G- are standing proudly--- but not at all close to each other, they’re eight--- displaying their “Excellence in Mathematics” certificates.  There are pictures of Angry Birds hand-drawn by Nora for her dad’s birthday a few years ago.  This board is so full now, that many of the pictures have been partially covered in order to make room for the recent additions.  

There are pictures of my beautiful college girl, when she was still a high-school girl, wearing her sparkly blue Show Choir dress and heavily applied stage makeup.  And there we are, the three of us girls, at her Backyard Graduation Picnic, still tan from our trip to Maui. Mixed among them all are old love notes that I will NEVER be able to get rid of.  Take this beauty for instance; Dear Mom, Love Nora, You are pritty.  You are cool.  I love you verry much.  I love you like your my puppy.  I love you as much as Jack.**

So try as I might, I can just never get this nook organized as well as I’d like.  It’s always messy.  There is always too much stuff here. But when you live with others, your life, too, becomes a collage.  It gets messy.  You overlap, you share, you collide.