A Room of My Own

 

Tuesday:  John is gone today.  As in all day today and it would truly be a shame to do no writing at all.  I spent the morning out shopping, the fun sort, where I wandered Hobby Lobby and Goodwill and TJ Maxx...but now that I'm home, and I still have a whole afternoon alone...Writing and putting my feet up is what appeals most.

The following will likely be written as a random post, but the sections are somewhat connected.

One of the things I've run into a lot lately is distraction.  John is my number one distraction, day in and day out.   

He is very attention seeking at times and by his own admission, selfish.  When he has something on his mind that he wants to talk about he just starts talking.  No matter if I ask him to hold his thoughts for a moment and let me get to a stopping point.  He starts talking and he keeps on talking, often for quite a long time.  He gets upset if I miss something he's said, or if I get testy, as I am prone to do when I am in the middle of a thought that is not coming together easily on the page.  Often, we will end up with a fuss between us that is even more distracting than one-sided conversation had been.

It's not just writing that he interrupts.  In John's mind, love means he has the freedom to interrupt me at anything I might be doing.  But I am most resentful when he interrupts me while I'm writing.

If he's not talking, but he's just in the mood for my attentions, then he will keep up a continual patter of jokes, singing little songs he's made up, anything, absolutely anything he can possibly do to draw my attention away from the computer and to himself.  

I got super frustrated with him this weekend and told him, "Please just give me a moment..."  Nope.  Wasn't going to happen.  I ended up being quite irritable and eventually, I told him that he was absolutely being a pain and I didn't appreciate it in the least.  "You make it sound like I distract you on purpose!"  "Well, you do!" I told him.  "I don't think you do it maliciously nor intentionally.  You are just so focused on what you want from me at the moment that you have no room left in your brain to think what I might need from you...for you to leave me alone!"  "You make me sound like Caleb!"  "Well darling, if that shoe fits..."

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John has a music room where he has instruments and stuff, lots of stuff.  He keeps a clear path to the piano which I appreciate, but it's his room and his room only.  He has his microphone and amp set up and his guitars on stands nearby so he can swap one for another and a lot of other music related things.  It's HIS.  It's been his ever since Sam moved out.  He told me when the boys were gone, that he would take over that room, and I agreed that he ought to do so.  

For all the years I've been using a computer to write, the computer has been in a public space in our home.  Ages ago, I had a desk at the end of the kitchen in a nook between the end of the kitchen counter and the window and that's where our desktop computer stayed.  If Katie was outdoors playing, and I was writing, without fail, she would come to that window and bounce up and down calling "Mama.  Mama.  Mama."   Then John would come home from work, and he'd just sit down at the kitchen table and start talking.  Two of a kind, those two!

I've had a laptop for years now.  When John worked, it was no problem to sit in my chair with my feet up, laptop on my lap and I'd work away.  Then John retired.  I have not altered my old habit of stopping mid-afternoon to put up my feet and work at writing.  Much to my detriment.

It has occurred to me that I need a space where I can write.  For obvious reasons, the bedroom that we share would not be the best space though I do have a desk there.  For one thing we both find it objectionable that either of us should be 'shut out' of that room.  It just seems very rude, even for a short spell each day. 

The dining table won't work, either. John has his computer at one end, and he will only be tempted to chat away or turn on a loud, irritating video that interests him and distracts me.   Since we redid the kitchen there is no longer space in that room for a desk.

As well, all of those spaces are places that are shared in this house and where John roams freely, as he should be able to do.  I mean, it is his home and he's here all day long, too.

But for today...I've got the house to myself.  My feet hurt and here I am in my chair with my feet up!

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I'm thinking of setting up a writing space in the guest room where I can go daily, sit down and write with the door closed and put out a do not disturb sign.  

Mind you, it won't be fully mine.  When the grandkids visit or guests come, I'll have to pack it all away but that's the beauty of a laptop being as portable as it is.  Truth told, I'm not writing when the kids are here anyway.  

After this past week and weekend, with a continual spate of interruptions, I decided that I absolutely must use that space from now on.  

A couple of weeks ago, I deep cleaned the guest room.  At that time, I did some minor rearranging of the furniture there.  I moved the old Singer sewing machine that belonged to my great grandmother in front of the window.  I sat down on the old bench that Grandmother used in front of her sewing machine and looked out the window.  It was a very pleasant place to sit and think. 

Big Mama used to have her sewing machine in her bedroom positioned facing the windows.  I suspect it was as much because she liked the natural light when sewing as that it looked out over fields and must have been a nice place to sit and think, too.  I guess it was a gentle nod to her moving that old machine in front of my window.

I think that's when I started to get the inkling that this could become my room once again.  A long while ago, you know, it was my crafting/sewing room.  Then it seemed as though there were guests in the room nearly all of the time and then Katie moved in with Caleb.  I have not reclaimed it as useable space for myself once again.  I think it's time.

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Wednesday:  A room of one's own, I think, is what most women need but seldom have.  I have only ever known one woman who had her own room, a bedroom but that's not for me.  I like to sleep in the same bed as my husband, I just do.  I don't want a bedroom of my own.  

I just want a space that is mine, a place where I can read if I want to, or write, or think, without interruption, without guilt, without looking at the clock to see how much longer before I need to get supper on the table...

I recall quite well the days when children, husband, pets would invade any space willy-nilly if I was in it and how wearing it was to always have to be attentive to someone else's wants/needs and not my own.  How many women can raise their hand and say, "Me, too,"?  My family invaded the bedroom when I was tired beyond words, the bathroom when all I wanted was 15 minutes alone, the porch regardless of the cold, wind, or rain that might make it uncomfortable.  I recall once, I went out to sit in the car, because no one thought to look for me there!  It was the most blissful 20 minutes.  But alas, once they found me, that was the end of that.  It became the first place they looked the next few times, so I gave it up.

When we purchased this home that we bought a three-bedroom house on purpose because we thought that it would discourage grown-up children from coming back home, and we had reasoned that we'd just have too much space once they were gone.  At the time, Jd had already gone out on his own and Amie was nearly 17.  Reality told us our family would continue to dwindle and the amount of room we had would expand.

But I have had reason to think often of how nice a fourth bedroom might be to have. Logically, I know it means that at some point a child and grandchildren, or my mother, would come in and use the two rooms, and I'd still have none. 

Let's face it, on the list of possibilities a spare room just for myself, is a fairly whimsical wish...and I think most women find it so.

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She Sheds had a moment a few years ago.  Gosh but some of them were lovely.  And maybe a little glam and luxe.

I considered that.  In my head, I imagined my shed as a space just for me where I might sew, write, craft, retreat.  But my shed has no windows, and I very much need natural light.  There's also no insulation and then there would be the need of some type of furniture. Ultimately the expense of making it really comfortable for our stupid hot and humid summers and keeping it warm in the late autumn and winter made it seem very impractical.  Especially when I'd only use it an hour or two a day and not even every day at that.

And practically speaking, I really need the storage space I have in that shed for all the random things I can't keep in the non-existent extra closets here in the house.  Not to mention that even that shed is not considered 'my space.  It's been the repository several times over for a child's furnishings, bulky big Christmas gifts bought by parents for the grandchildren and the occasional thing John has replaced but wants to keep in case someone else might be able to use it. 

At present, not only does it hold my necessary storage but there is a king-sized mattress that Sam is 'keeping' for Bess to use if ever she gets a place of her own.  Mind you, he asked at first to store it in my guest room for 'just a few weeks'.  I offered up the shed instead, very wisely as it turns out, as the mattress has now been in my shed for something like five months.

If I really wanted a She Shed, John would happily buy another shed to put here on the property.  Paying for that would delay remodeling it.  And it would mean we would have delay furniture purchases for the house because we'd be paying for the shed.  

We have three already.  One is mine.  One is his 'shop' and it's full of tools and work benches and toolboxes and the third one is meant to be a proper storage shed for pieces of furniture we keep, a bike, etc., but he found a snakeskin there two years ago and he's refused to step inside since.  He opened it last spring after I teased him endlessly about the wasted space and found two snake skins lying right inside the door so now, he just shudders if I mention that shed at all. By the way, I had to go in to retrieve the item he needed then, and I was the one who picked up a third snakeskin that was on top of it...So the shudders are mutual.

Besides, where would we put another shed? It may sound silly but to have a fourth shed on the property just looks a bit too much like we're boarding on being hoarders (not true), and that is something that bothers me and no one else but me.  

So that's why I wanted to take advantage of John's being gone all day to write, in my chair, with my feet up.

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John has, this afternoon, talked to me about the lawnmower repairs.  He's read out loud all of the clues to the puzzles he's working on and asked for my input on the answers. He's talked to me about ordering a belt.  He's read off at least three news items. I kept thinking he'd surely, at some point, come sit in his chair, turn on the tv and doze off as he usually will do.  Not today!

So, when I got ready to try to finish off this post, I didn't get aggravated.  I didn't snap at him.  I just unplugged my computer, picked it up and walked into the guest room, closing the door quietly behind me.  I've had 20 minutes to write the rest of this post.  It's been wonderful.

I've watched the sun drop down behind the trees, seen Rufus wander across the back yard on his way to visit Sheldon next door.  I've not worried about supper, or whether or not John found a new belt online.  I've just gathered my thoughts, finished my bit of writing.  I'm not tense and stressed or feeling witchy.  I'm calm and peaceful.   

I can do this.  I can claim a bit of space, a bit of time, for my own.  It will be a good thing for me and for us.