A new writing station

Geography is everything. Several months ago, we rearranged our living room. The lounge chair by the window had been a perfect writing spot. I could stretch my legs or sit cross-legged with my laptop, set my water bottle or coffee cup in the window sill, have plenty of space on the chaise lounge to deposit my writing accoutrement (pen, notebook, dictionary), and be next to the window to watch birds and flowers and whatever else was going on outside. The only problem was that the chair hurt my back. So we bought a different chair, put it next to the window, and… I never sat in it. It didn’t do any of the things I needed. I had to crane my neck to read or write, I couldn’t sit cross-legged, the arms were too narrow for my lap board. I sat on the couch instead. Away from the window. Where I couldn’t see out.

And I basically stopped writing.

I didn’t put this together until this week. I’m on my gardening vacation, and after I cleared out the brush and debris in the garden, and I uncovered the green leaves, and I delighted in the pink tulips and yellow daffodils blooming happily out front, I felt a clearing within me. Into that clearing came a compulsion to create. Something. Somehow. I walked around in circles trying to figure out what to do with this open space inside of me.

Meanwhile, my husband and I knew the new chair had to go. The only people who sat in it were the cats. When they’d stretch and finally thud down to the floor to saunter over to their food bowls, they left behind mats of fur that grossed us out. I’d clean the chair and sit out of obligation since we bought it and it was in the best spot in the room. But I didn’t like it. I certainly didn’t get cozy and write in it.

One afternoon this week, when I’d shoveled as much mulch as my body could handle for the day, I came inside and decided to move some furniture. I shoved the cat chair into our son’s room just to get it out of the way, and I moved a little chair from our bedroom — a great little chair that had previously been in the living room but didn’t get much use because it didn’t have a place to put your feet — into the now open space by the window. I sat in the chair and loved its lightness. I could turn it to look out the window, or turn it to face the room, or turn it to the fireplace, all easily, no need to put my back into it. All it lacked was a place to prop my feet, and then it’d do just fine. So I ran over to Target and got a pouf, as our daughter calls it: an ovoid hassock that’s as nimble as the chair.

Since creating this new setup, I sit here every chance I get. Morning coffee: I’m in the chair with my feet up. Midmorning writing: I’m in the chair with my feet up. Afternoon tea: yep, chair with feet up. I still have to fight the cats for it, but sometimes we are able to share. I sit and I admire the sunlight on the pouf, on our wood floor, on our new houseplants. I look out the window and admire the tangerine pansies in the flower baskets, and the floppy yellow daffodils, our neighbors’ pear trees covered in white blossoms, our flower beds covered in a fresh layer of mulch, and the pruned rose bushes covered in starbursts of new leaves.

Coincidentally, I’ve wanted to write again. I’ve felt more like writing in the past two days than I felt the whole time the other chair was here, the chair I never sat in, by the window I never sat next to anymore. Now, here I sit, my feet on the hassock, my laptop on my lap board on my lap. A cat purrs on my arms and I look out the window. Blue jays flit among bare branches, robins pull worms up from the ground, a raindrop splats against the glass next to me, and the scent of lemon bread drifts out from the kitchen. Time to get up, just long enough to drizzle a glaze. Then I’ll be back to admire the view, and possibly write again.