A Room of One’s Own
It is two minutes until 10pm– the bedtime prescribed by my psychiatrist, my therapist, my sister, and my husband. Apparently, sleep is a miracle medicine all its own. I am trying to indulge in it. But, the ideas! The ideas keep coming and sleep just seems to get in the way.
I am out on the back deck. It is long past sun down. The bull frogs and numerous insects that I am not savvy enough to name have appeared, in their full choral majesty, to claim the darkness that is theirs to illuminate.
I am on the back deck with my lap top, two candles, and a pile of scratchings that are meant to be the skeletons of stories. My own attempts at illumination.
I recently watched the film adaptation of the The Hours by Michael Cunningham and am, of course, reminded of Virginia Woolf. (Odd that I should have just mentioned Virginia Woolf and then The Hours and now this…)
I have been thinking about having a room of one’s own, of forging the mental and physical space to write, to create. I have a room, an actual room in our house, that is meant to be my writing room. We actually call it the reading room, because it is stacked with books and has a lovely chaise lounge-like day bed and original artwork (aren’t we classy!). But it is meant to be a space for my writing as well.
Yet, the beautiful room has become that room in which you throw everything that has no place. That room that you keep closed when you have company so as to maintain the mirage of organization that you manage to survive by. My “room” is an utter disaster and is anything but inspirational. I have been working at the kitchen table– and only if the dishes are done and the counters are clean. No wonder I have been going mad.
But, there is a bright side to this sad story.
Tonight. Warm enough for shorts and a tank top. Silent except for the amphibial orchestra and the rush of the wind through the trees, the distant bark of a melancholy dog, and far, far in the distance the hum of traffic. There is no light tonight, save that of my candles, the stark white of my screen, and the orange glow of a neighbor’s window mysteriously veiled by the full flora of spring.
Ah, this, my room.
The End.
If I seem to be abrupt in my ending, it is only that I hear Silas waking, perhaps from a nightmare, in a fit of shudders and screams.
Maybe, again, tomorrow night? Same time, same place?
