Life doesn’t seem to thoroughly surprise me too often anymore. Well, that’s not entirely true. I often get surprised at how absolutely stupid we are at times. Like when watching Sicko the other night, I just couldn’t believe the inanity of our health care system and the amazing lies we continue to tell ourselves about so-called socialized medicine. But I also couldn’t believe that a smart guy like Michael Moore continues to insist on including a few low blows (i.e his Charleton Heston stunt in Bowling for Columbine) like the boat into Cuba—dumb, over-dramatic, not even rhetorically savvy. So that kind of surprise I get plenty of but the positive shake-up, the “wow, I’m feeling so good about how the world has opened up” rarely happens.
It happened today when we set up my new office. It’s not exactly “new” but before it was just a fold up table and a book shelf. Now, thanks to furniture in a box and my wife who pushed and pulled me along, I’ve got a desk, a hutch, two book shelves and a matching filing cabinet (though my wife will probably take over this, sticking all kinds of unimportant crap in there like our birth certificates, warranties, account information, you name it). It’s got that new-all-over kind of feel—new carpet, new baseboards that I cut and my wife painted, a new lamp, and lot of space where I can stack books and papers and crap. But that’s not what led to my epiphany, not exactly.
A room of one’s own, a potentially blasphemous comparison I know being the dominant white male I am, but it’s true. I haven’t had my own permanent space since I was a kid and back then I didn’t know dick about what I liked or what comforted me. I know I have a house, all 3,000 square feet of it, but it’s not only my space and honestly it’s really my wife’s space. I’m not really blaming her—I’ve pretty much relinquished the space as I don’t trust my decorating skills and because I have other important battle fronts. To demonstrate: I’ve had some old beer bottles I’ve wanted to put out; instead they have been wrapped and shaded in a wooden box with a latch (one my dad made in wood shop) for years. I’m not a beer drinker so why in the hell would I want to display these? Because they have a story, a great story. When I was about 12 my grandmother Christy had me and my cousin, Jeff, help clean out her attic. While cleaning it we found cases of old beer bottles. Given my grandmother was a devout Mormon, this came as a bit of shock. Turns out her husband made his own beer. Funny she kept the bottles for so long—he died in the late 1950s.
My grandmother was quite embarrassed and wasn’t going to let us keep any of the bottle until we begged. And even then she only wanted us to have one of each kind. I clearly remember going back to the truck and sneaking about small 12 oz Fisher bottle. On many occasion I’ve tried to find a place for these but my wife has always put the Kaibosh on it. I guess they tie me to my past, to my grandmother Christy who lived next door where I spent evenings watching the Love Boat and eating popcorn popped the old way with oil in a pan and days helping the garden, moving the grass, carrying out her flower boxes (hell they were heavy) each summer that she’d kept alive in the house during the winter. And they speak to the often hidden lives of Mormons—I like that.
And now at 39, I have a space where I can put up whatever I want. It’s kind of liberating, opening up all kinds of possibilities.
I scouted around for the boxes that hold my childhood stuff. I’ve found many a treasure to put in my new found space: marbles that my dad gave me which he had gotten from Uncle Floyd—several are made of clay, dating back 70 plus years; nifty rocks I’ve held onto for years—a petrified piece of wood, a seeming embedded vertebrae of some sorts, a pink crystal type rock; and many more antique bottles. The attic clean up with my grandma Christy also yielded several wine jugs, my favorites are the fancy Ellena Brothers 1 gallon wine jugs from CA. It took cunning to keep a hold of these as my grandma tried to get them back a week later; she had a friend who wanted to plant something in them---of course we refused, thinking this was an abomination to blemish such a fine bottle.
I also put on display several of the antique bottles my grandpa Mackey gave me before he died. He literally had 1,000s of antique purple bottles curing on his roof for years, then stored them in the basement along side his vast collection of arrowheads. He was an impatient man with people, until he got older, but a meticulous, detailed oriented collector. A year or so before he died he began to distribute his bottles to his grandchildren. Among my 15 or so are several flasks, a few Watkin’s medicine flasks, and a purplish thick bottle which my grandpa said was of very good quality. Glass a dying age of containers, which reaches back to those past on.
It’s the oddest feeling sitting here with the familiarity of my stuff: my little sanctuary. I’m not sure why I didn’t do this before—the money, the time, insecurities. Here I am and feels good, calming, in the moment. So many possibilities open up for one not apt to buy much of anything outside of books and bikes: some images of Hayao Miyazaki crouched over his drawings smoking, images from Miyazaki’s films, some Dan Johnston artwork, a Georgia O’Keefe, a landscape painting or two. Maybe having these things around me solidifies what I believe in, what I’ve done, who I am. A room of my own is a very fine thing.
5 comments:
I don't think gender matters. If you have "work" you want to do, you need a room. Especially if you have a family or people who want your time. Also, a place for your books and stuff is key. I have a bulletin board with lots of postcards, one of my favorites is a photo of Anne Sexton and WS Merwin when he was young and sexy.
Congrats on your room. I have a basement, but it's a basement. Kinda sucks. But I should be thankful for the space.
Everyone deserves a space of his/her own, if it can be had, and it is a great blessing. In a way, you create a little shrine of the things you value, that restore you to yourself, your past, your (sorry if this rankles) soul.
Since we're sharing, in my study, I have a piece of artwork by each of my kids which I love, a photo of W.C. Handy (not sure why--but that's okay, I love it), pieces of art I've made, the big chair, shelves with (too many) books. My files. It is an awesome thing to have one's own space, and I'm so glad to hear you have one of your own now, too. What a splendid person, your wife, for helping you to put it together.
Dr W: I actually noted the "you" in your space when we were watching the Jazz game downstairs a few months ago. It felt like you, felt honest, out there, like a room (well at least a corner) of one's own.
lisa: yes, my wife is a splendid person. I never would have done it without her. Of course I wouldn't have made any of the house improvements without her promptings (sometimes feel like naggings)
I had a friend, a poet, who was divorced and proceeded to remake his formal matrimonial abode into a complete reflection of himself and himself alone. In the front room he replaced the furniture which disappeared with his wife with a ping pong table.
His office, where he wrote his poetry, remained in the garage, however, where it had always been. He would sit at the work bench and work on his poems as if he were working on wood.
you have a man cave now. good for you! Funny how comforting little personal items are..how they tap into nostalgia. It sound like the items themselves aren't as important as the memories they evoke in you.
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