In my room I have azure walls, a textured rug that looks
like sand and tickles my bare feet, a cerulean blue loveseat, and white bead
board furniture that the LL Bean catalog assured me would evoke what I hope to
own someday, a modest Maine cottage, perhaps one backing onto a vestigial marsh
or fronting an unspoiled bay. This is
where I write, in summer every day and during the school year, once a week at
least, though I wish it could be more.
My desk is smooth and cool and faces an expanse of wall that
could be ocean or summer sky. Sometimes, I take a break from typing and close
my eyes. I rub my palms over the satin worktop and remember the silky edges of basinette
blankets and this room’s former decorative incarnations: In earlier years, a crib at the window, walls
pasted with white and sprinkled with hearts, stars, rectangles, circles, all in
primary colors; then later the paper ripped and faded, hidden behind Hansson
posters, bumper stickers, postcards from our cross-country trips, snapshots from proms and
graduations.
My desk is just big enough to hold my laptop, some books, and
a dotted porcelain lamp, the latter my only personal purchase on a two-shopping-cart
college -supply trip to Ikea with my younger daughter. My elbows meet desk meets forearms meet laptop
in one sinuous slide, a natural extension of me, unlike my old working surface,
which doesn't belong in this space, and was slightly higher and stung my wrists,
a second hand dining table, Scandinavian-designed, golden teak. It was our
first purchase, two weeks before the wedding. He didn’t want the table when
things ended, or he asked for it too late. Or maybe the girls were using it for
school projects. I don’t care to remember. It sat in the cellar then. It’s still there
today.
I wrote downstairs on the teak for years, my news stories,
graduate papers, letters to lawyers, child support departments, university
financial aid offices, while the girls played at the other end of the room or
watched their favorite show, or hung with friends, or ignored me from their
rooms above. It was dusky down there, the paneled walls dark, the rug too.
The lights in the low ceiling always flickered and buzzed, no matter how often I
replaced the tubes.
The setting suited me, then eventually became too cold, too
dark, too quiet. The teak hasn’t moved
in years, though my daughters have, many times. It sits at the edge of what was
once the old playroom, slumber party venue, craft studio, but is now my oldest
one’s makeshift studio apartment. The table top holds two obsolete printers, a cracked
computer monitor, three crates of moldy paperbacks, the internet router,
several families of dust bunnies, and occasionally a snoring cat. A jumble of kitchen
supplies, and suitcases stuffed with shoes, sweaters, winter coats occupy the
space underneath.
Most nights we sit on the loveseat upstairs in my still blue
room, my eldest and me, and watch Jeopardy or pat cats. We talk about futures, hers
and mine. On the floor next to my desk, encased
in its original plastic, is a rolled up poster. It’s about the same size of the
only decoration on the wall beyond my laptop, which is a framed souvenir from my first
Boston Marathon. The names of all 15,000 of us runners are embossed in navy
upon the marine blue backing. If I stand and squint, I can find my name inside
the right curve of the second letter O in Boston.
My newest poster, still taped
tight, is a memory from this year’s run. I have yet to flatten and frame and figure
where it needs to go. I have yet to find my name. I’m happy with my open walls.
For now, that’s enough. That's all I want.
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