When I was growing up, I shared a room with my sister.A small room.I did homework in bed; the room was too small for a chair and the desk was stamp size and wouldn't hold a book and a notebook.To keep that room neat with two of us was impossible.What I do remember most and with fondness is the window and the maples beyond, lit by the street light.They were my friends and when I looked out there, I was in a different place.
In her essay,"A Room of One's Own",Virginia Woolf posits that there would have been a plethora of women writers through the centuries if they had had a spot to call their own.A place where a woman could ,undisturbed, spread out her thoughts and come to some conclusions.Without guilt.
That,however,is the past.Today,I am in a room of my own.It faces the back yard where there are trees and grass and in my garden, the nodding yellow heads of the swamp
daisies.Beyond the trees,pine,oak,maple and tulip,is the floodplain and the Flint River which I cannot see.Living near the floodplain assures me that I will never see a house behind me.Just green and brown and grey.
I have three windows in the room which makes it very bright.I do yoga here,listening to music on my P.C.I write,keep up with friends and pray. Around me are pen and ink drawings, old wooden tables and books.And in the corner is a chair, not unlike the one in the painting that I have attached by Gwen John.That picture speaks to me on such a deep level.It says,peace,solitude,writing and simplicity.Margaret Forster wrote a novel about that painting, she was so moved and infatuated with it.It's called "Keeping The World Away".Reading it was a pleasure.
From these windows, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and like ghosts, four deer will have moved onto the grass from the woods.I have seen turkeys wander through and saved a blue jay that had been caught and pinned by a hawk.His flock mates set up such a racket that I had to go out there.
I am blessed to finally have what my spirit needed and didn't know it.
