Another lovely thing
2 Lovely things part 2
Ever since I joined Substack I have seen pictures of other people’s writing spaces and been rather envious. You know the sort of picture- a desk in a bay window over looking a beautiful garden, an attic room with a view over rooftops, a view of a river, mountains or the sea, the combination of cosy and inspiring.
I have a choice of places the write- a table in the cold dark kitchen, an armchair in the living room with a cluttered coffee table and people constantly passing just outside the window or sitting on the spare bed in a room full of sewing stuff, teaching resources and, usually, a teetering ironing pile.
Not exactly cosy or inspiring are they?
As I wrote in my recent post “Clear, sort, keep, recycle, dump” I’ve been on a mission to get rid of lots of things, specially from the spare room. In that post I mentioned my plan to eventually have a little desk for writing. Amongst the comments was the suggestion of getting a writing bureau with a fold down front,
thank you for that idea!Last Thursday I decided to go into a local secondhand furniture shop to see whether they would take some surplus pictures- they would hurray! While I was there I saw a very neat little bureau and my vague plan for “some time in the future” sped up!
A quick discussion ensued with my husband- not because I needed his permission but I did need his help and his car! Having reserved the bureau on Friday morning, the rest of the day was spent emptying the chest of drawers which the bureau would replace, packing more things into boxes and putting more items into the recycling or rubbish bins.
Saturday morning found us taking a carrier bag of paintings into the shop and coming home with the bureau. The rest of the day was spent cleaning it up and creating a bit more order from the chaos.
Then I sat at my bureau with everything I needed at hand and wrote about my day. It’s not perfect and not everything is in quite the right place yet but, even if I don’t have an inspiring view, I now have a writing space and that is a joy.
How interesting that before your post I read one on a similar topic. Elif Shafak wrote about writing places today, encouraging people not to stop from writing for the lack of a perfect place to start with. It’s wonderful that you have a vision you are moving towards.
What a wonderful new writing space! How is it working out? Did you choose the mug holding your pens on purpose? I love my little writing nook in the corner of my bedroom.