For the first time since we left Seattle, 51 days ago, I have a desk to work at. It feels like the best of homecomings. Since our departure, I’ve worked on the floor of our van, I’ve worked with a lap desk while sitting on the sofa, and I’ve worked at the kitchen table. While each of these afforded enough lighting and adequate workspace for limited projects, each one also had significant limitations. In every case the space was small and temporary and needed to be cleared at the end of each work session to make room for other activities.
This past weekend we traveled to a new home (and town) to spend a couple of weeks with family as we lead up to Christmas. Here, I find myself in a freshly remodeled guest room. It’s so freshly remodeled in fact that it still smells of new carpet and was empty of furniture except for one empty bookshelf in one corner and a floor lamp in another. Benjamin hung the bedroom door after we arrived and small details like ceiling trim and electrical socket plates still need to be installed.
I love it. There’s something so very exciting about walking into a brand new empty space.
It’s very different here from where we spent our Thanksgiving holiday. Previously, our schedule was full of activity and people who had the luxury of spending their days with us due to being retired. The home was full of their lifestyle and things (as it should be). But here, we have an empty room to call our own and we spend hours alone each day. As others’ schedules open up we fill in with visits here and there. Everything about our previous experience felt full and everything here about our experience feels like a blank slate being filled as we go.
At the other end of the house, unused, sat this slim and charming desk. Yesterday we carried it down the hall and into our blank-canvas room and I got settled into it yesterday evening. A slim desk and a folding chair to call my own, paired with my few bins of supplies I’ve carried with me through our travels feels like the most elaborate extravagance after camping out in so many varied workspaces over the last 51 days.
An empty room, an empty desk, and a schedule with breathing room all fill me with such hopeful possibility. I can’t wait to catch up on correspondence and perhaps start working on some new creative projects that I’ve diligently been taking notes about over the last couple of months. I’m ready to make something of these scattered ideas and this physical, mental and time space is going to make all the difference.
