GuamaMama

I often envy writers that have special nooks and crannies they call their own space. They have pillows and cozy quilts, perhaps an antique knobby wooded desk with a laptop perched atop or, better yet, grandma’s old Royal. As they write, they look beyond the confines of their leaded glass window panes and search for ideas in some nether region along nature’s glorious horizon—the sky, the forest tree tops, an ocean view, etc. I imagine these writers to be completely satiated—surrounded by the softness of these comforting tools of the trade.

If I sound mocking, well, I’m actually more jealous of these people than anything. My “space”, as it stands, is the 300 square foot back-room addition I share with my child in my mother’s home. A cheap futon mattress and equally cheap metal frame dominate the room. Flattened pillows, dust bunnies, a 3X3 cardboard box filled with toys (I do NOT have the time to wrap the box in decorative paper), vinyl tiles meant to “trick” one into thinking they just may be marble, and my child’s little circle work table all complete this very modest room. The modesty ascribed to this house further dictates that technological design and comfort be stricken from it, i.e. no PC and no instantly recorded/saved flashes of brilliance. So, basically, I write wherever the hell I can. This means:

I’ll scribble guiltily, in the evenings, on scraps or a used notepad sitting on a flattened-out futon mattress as my five-year old begs me to play.

The guilt, inevitably, will force me to wait for daylight and write at work because there I have a computer, and there I will pathetically try to bury my scandalous essay on some autobiographical seduction by calling the file “Document.”

Sometimes, and only when I can think of a brilliant lie, I’ll leave the house late at night to write in one of the local PC rooms where adolescent and adult males converge to play cyber games at the mere price of $3.00/hour. Amidst urgent, manly yells of “Shoot him! Shoot him!” and an amusing variety of expletives flying about the room, I write furiously and email all documents to myself, to be opened later…at work.

Or, I write like I am now, again at work, frantically cheating at life and time because it is now 6:52 pm and both my five-year old and my 75 year-old annoyingly wonder where I am.

Then, saddest of all, I’ll write in my head, driving to one of my preset destinations. These ideas rarely metamorphose into tangibles, and I reluctantly accept their fleeting lives.

At the apex of any of these moments, I am most vulnerable. I ache for that soft place.

It is only at the point of resolution when I remind myself that perhaps it is the sadness—the frantic, broke-ass tragicomedy of trying to write any place and trying to say any thing—that is most compelling and dares me to do any of it at all.

posted by techa @ 2:21 PM