an open letter … on writing spaces
He didn’t take it. That airless room in that rumpty, old beast of a house. I don’t remember why now. I was 10, my brother 7, and what I do remember is how filled with joy we were to have him home. Gone a year. Gone travelling to recover from the withering of his marriage to our mother. And now he was back and needing somewhere to live, somewhere cheap with space enough for him to paint and for us to stay every second weekend. Our potential flatmate showed us through, a barefoot, listless girl; disinterested in two small children, I thought her rude. There was a kitty, she said, a roster. She pointed out the grubby kitchen and outdoor loo. What’s up there, I asked? Nothing much, she said, just a garret. A garret! While she took my father through the complicated splitting of the bills, my brother and I snuck up. Even now I can picture what we found at the end of those snaking stairs. That tiny, tiny windowed room, high, high among the plane trees. This, I can remember thinking with the utter sureness of an innocent; this was a room for writing.
Later, with his second wife, before that marriage, too, disintegrated, my father would live in a rumpty, old beast of a house. There was no garret but there was a very small room, an alcove really, and it was mine. Curtain-less, it was like sleeping in a tree hut, caught in the embrace of creaking, swaying branches. Too busy, sneaking out, sneaking boys in, sadly I wrote only what was required of me for English homework. Later still, I sub-let a miniscule apartment in Paris, on the very top of an ancient, lift-less building. Now, I thought, now I will write, but I was too busy, trying to make enough money for the rent, being cheated on by my velvet-skinned, smooth-talking lover.
One of my first journalism assignments was to interview writers about where they write. Small rooms, big rooms, light rooms, dark rooms; the only necessary tools, I deduced, a laden bookshelf and a Persian rug. None sat amid the clouds.
A friend of mine, a wonderful, successful writer, who lives in a home overlooking the harbour, writes in an almost cell-like space in her basement. When I professed surprise, she said it was deliberate. To minimise distractions. (She also advises against playing music when writing, which I always do, lest you fool yourself you have imbued your words with whatever feeling the music inspires in you.)
I am sure she is right, and yet it has never left me: that desire for a room in the sky in which to write. It is why, if I am honest, I set my heart upon when buying this house. Because there is a room as tall as the neighbour’s three bendy palm trees, where life – traffic and children and what to make for dinner – carries on below and high up there is just the wind and the gulls and the empty page before me.
FOLLOWING ON
In regard to wills, Miranda wrote, “Yes, it is as exciting as watching the paint dry on your renovated walls. But sensible. Because at our age life throws curve balls and it’s sensible to be prepared. Like when I received a call out of the blue last year to say my friend’s husband had passed away. My friend. Someone our age. Funerals are something we attend for our friends’ parents. Not our friends.” On the subject of what you wish done with your remains, Andrea wrote, “My dad stated in his will he wanted to be cremated but didn’t give any instructions about what next. Hence his ashes are in my wardrobe and I am happy to have him there. My siblings ask after him and I always say he is no trouble and is the perfect house guest. But I wish he’d let us know what he wanted, so like your husband I put in my will I want my ashes scattered at sea. Since then I have heard stories of the wind changing and family members getting covered in ashes. I’ll be changing my instructions next time I update my will.” And concerning the question of whether we are ever ready for death, Val wrote, “When you are young and enjoying life you fear death. However, once you are elderly and have led a full life, which maybe holds no joy anymore, then perhaps we are ready to embrace it.”
A friend of mine, a wonderful, successful writer, who lives in a home overlooking the harbour, writes in an almost cell-like space in her basement.