Room 226B

Sunset from Entrance to the Office Building first night Shh…I’ve been keeping a big secret for at least a week now. Okay, I know the blog has been fairly quiet in general for a while, but that’s because I haven’t quite worked out the art of daily blogging with the art of daily living especially when so much is happening in the living department. So, I’m opening the door a crack, so you can see what’s been going on in the living department lately.

I have a space of my own. No, not a house, but an office. An office outside the home. And, not just a table at the local café or bookstore. I have a real office with my name on the door, a desk and phone, privacy and access to a conference room where I can teach. Yes, its true I’ve had a home office for years – one with frequent interruptions by family members, needy pets, and household chores. I’ve claimed a table at Books-a-Million and made friends with the baristas there, but none of these places have been private or mine.

More Sunset

For years friends and fellow writers have encouraged me to find a proverbial room of my own and I have smiled and nodding, knowing I should do so, but not knowing how to make it happen. Last month, my uncle told my father about some office space available in a small business incubator location. My father told me and the rest is history. I am still a bit shell-shocked. It seems to good to be true and it is such a powerful thing; something perhaps not easily appreciated by those to whom space has come easily. I have had little to call mine. Aside from a bedroom and a small home office, the closest I have ever gotten to space of my own was a single dorm room my sophomore year of college. One with such paper-thin walls that I could hear my best friend watching Oprah in the next room and we could gossip simply by sitting close to the wall and chatting.

Moving In

I love my family, I love my friends. I even have enjoyed the company of the other lost souls setting up makeshift workspace in first Borders and then Books-a-Million’s café, but having a workspace to call mine is so novel, so different, I am having a hard time believing it. I moved in last week: hung my photographs and diplomas on the wall, watched the sun set a brilliant shade of red over the parking lot, purchased tulips the lightest shade of lavender and placed them in a vase in my window. I set up my printer on my own and even hung the Biography and Memoirs sign that I purchased when Borders was going out of business right above my bookshelf above a picture of me showing Alfie. The Borders table I bought at the same closeout has found a home in my new space as well.

Now, that I’ve told you about it, perhaps it will seem a bit more real, though I think it will take some time for it to truly sit in. I find myself rushing through interviews and appointments just to get a chance to work in my new space, room 226B.

Me in My Office