A Room Of One's Own

Whenever I travel I feel like it takes me so much time to get some semblance of control back in my life. Everything feels surreal, as though I'm looking at my family and my home from the outside.

It generally takes me a few days to get my 'land legs' back, but eventually they come (this time with the help of some lovely wine from my hostess, and a gift bottle made by the husband of one of my students, Tina!)

I got home yesterday, read a few emails, then crashed until Max's ball game. Then home and right to bed again, the whole room felt like it was moving (car, boat? who knows...)

I open my computer, I see the amount of work I need to get done, and I just want to close it and walk away. But I don't. However, sometimes it does take me a few days to get back to folks while I'm still in 'road mode'.

Part of this 'out of body' feeling - which has been with me ever since we've moved here - has to do with Gerry's health and the fact that I seldom permit my mind to focus 100% on my work (other scenarios are always playing in the outdoor theater that is my brain.)

But I'm convinced that a large part of my unsettled-ness is that I haven't found a good place for me to work, and it's been making my job much harder than it needs to be.

It's rough to feel like a transient in your own home, and carving out a corner of the living room to store my current work / books / paperwork / notes just isn't cutting it. I need an office. Perhaps this is why I've enjoyed my car time so much recently - the chance to be ON MY OWN and think all by myself!

We - well, to be honest, Gerry - had thought that the basement would be the answer, but I'm not feeling it.

I moved much of my stuff down there, but perhaps because I have to duck every time I go down the basement steps I don't really run to the basement to get my work done. It's not feeling right to me.

However, I was in the upstairs office a few weeks ago finishing up a DVD for Gerry and I thought, "You know, THIS is exactly what I need - an OFFICE!"

Dur.

When we were looking for a house, we rejected out of hand any home that didn't have a 4th bedroom. Why? Because that was going to be my OFFICE. With my own little secretarial pool.

Oh, how soon we forget...

But then life took a sharp left turn and setting up the office as a retreat for Gerry (a retreat near a bathroom - we had no downstairs bathroom for our first 10 months here) was much more important.

The room has evolved into a computer / video playroom for Gerry and the kids, a place for them to do homework and email friends and a haven for Gerry to keep on top of his MM paperwork.

Unfortunately, it means I'm constantly wandering the house with my laptop, a high-tech Marley, looking for a place to get a little inspiration and juggling 15 balls of yarn as I wander. The chains I drag behind me are crocheted.

This must change.

I feel terrible, but I'm kicking them out. Today. See, give me a new camera and it entirely goes to my head...

The kids can take over the redone basement (I'll keep a lot my stuff down there as storage for finished projects and yarn supplies) and Gerry can set himself up in HIS chair in the living room. I am taking over the office. Mortgage trumps homework.

There. The foot is officially down. Now lets see if it stays there...

I'm going to break the news to Gerry (perhaps by writing it into a blog...?) and then I'm fleeing to the Textile Center to do a little research on some articles I'm writing on shaping and colorwork.

While I'm gone he can start phase one of the office switch; making Max move his 10,000 bionicles and lego parts to the basement. This should be interesting, n'est ce pas?

Boy, do I need this. I'll tell him it's all that I want for our anniversary (8/21) and my birthday (9/3).

BTW, here's a little movie I made of Max's baseball game yesterday with my little Canon G7 camera.