2:34 a.m. - 2004-01-16
Comfortable Clutter
Jamie was giving me grief yesterday for not writing here often enough, and he’s right – considering how much free time I have these days, I have been woefully neglectful. But when I settle myself here in my nook, switch on my lamps, burrow into my quilt if it’s chilly, and turn to my laptop, it isn’t my journal that calls out to be written. There are bigger things, better things, that demand my attention, and much though I’ve always believed that this journal is a perfectly worthwhile outlet for my writing, lately it’s hard to convince myself that there isn’t something else I should be working on. Articles, fresh from the ever lengthening list in my sketchbook, pour out onto the page with remarkable ease. All the things I’ve always told myself I should be able to do, I suddenly find myself doing. Writing. Real, honest to god, includes a query letter and postage paid envelope, writing. My desk, though cluttered with a few glasses and empty cans of tonic water (that I add to my orange juice; I’m not taking this real writer thing that far), is starting to resemble that of a writer’s. Pens scattered about, a bottle of ink perched next to a blotter upon which a dripping pen sits slightly pretentiously, notes to myself in the scrawl of ideas flowing too fast to catch.
Next to my desk, a filing system that’s actually starting to take shape sits, forcing me to stay organized, a constant reminder that if I’m serious about this thing I need to stop faking it. A single picture frame sits on my desk, holding a shot from the Raisin’s wedding, one that makes me smile every time I look at it. It’s there to remind me to laugh once in a while, to remind me that even in horrible weeks like this one when I fight with Jamie, even when I’ve been writing for four hours and feel like I haven’t written anything but crap, even when I’m sick and kind of grouchy and want to be asleep, I will always have my best friend and we will always laugh together.
Across the desk from that is Horace, patiently waiting to fill up, with a Disneyland Belle rose sitting next to him, a reminder of what he’s there for, a tactile reminder of the feeling of standing in Disneyland with the glowing rose in my hands, surrounded by joy and laughter, happier than I have ever been. Pinned to the wall above my desk is a dreamcatcher, there to stop all of the bad dreams from getting through and to remind me of the good ones, the ones that keep me up at two in the morning, squirreled away in the basement with my laptop that has so quickly become an extension of my body. A picture of the Bean, unframed and small but nonetheless adorable, sits at the base of my lamp, where her smiling happy face will lift any bad mood. Three lamps, one tall, one small, and one in between, flood my desk with the light I crave on dark nights here in my basement. Propped up against the smallest, a blue lamp that offers a comforting amount of light without being bossy about it, is the stained glass treble clef Jamie gave me, on our first anniversary that seems already so long ago.
On the newel post next to my desk, my Disneyland 2003 mortar board is jauntily hung, reminding me of the accomplishments of 2003, making me smile with the incongruous ears on top of the usually solemn accessory. My real mortar board sits in a box, black and dull, filled with far fewer memories and far less joy.
There is clutter on this desk, and I would be lying if I said there wasn’t. An erstwhile screwdriver, a scrap of paper, a nail file. The corner basket is filled nearly to the top with homeless assortments, desperately in need of organizing. But the overwhelming feeling of this desk is happiness. I have filled my space with the things that remind me of the best parts of my life, and as a result I have created the kind of space I need. The results are found here, on my computer, where I’ve written pages and pages in the last weeks, where the writing seems to come more easily than ever before. The sound of my fingers on the keys, the sight of my words on the screen, has made this corner of the basement familiar. But by surrounding myself with the comforts of my life, I’ve made it my own.
