A Place to Write
(Note: This image was from when I first moved into my apartment. It now a more impressive mess with less wall space.)
In my little off-campus apartment, I have a small office area in one corner of the living room. In this corner, I have a window ledge crammed with books, a dragon's hoard of empty notebooks and emergency supplies, and my desk. The desk came with the furnished apartment, but I worked hard to make it my own. I made it floral print with washi-tape, cluttered it with my disastrous mess, and hung a gallery wall of art and picture frames. In my mind, I have made this little desk area the most designed and ideal writing space. And yet, I barely ever make productive work here. Some days, I will sit at my desk, trying to push out words or notes. After about an hour, I will migrate to the couch or sit in the bathroom for thirty-minutes, finding that these are much better writing spaces.
After spending so much time decorating and personalizing my desk, I wonder why I cannot ever write there. Most of my most productive work is done on the second-hand couch, in the tiny bathroom, outside sitting on the ground, underneath a tree, or in the comfort of my own bed. I have no reason or explanation for this. In my ideal, Englishing and writing world, couches and beds should be too comfortable while nature and bathrooms should be too rough to be a good writing environment. Then again, it is a habit to idealize the arts and the artist. The classic image of the writer is usually pictured sitting at the spacious desk, smoking a cigar, and waiting for inspiration while dreaming over whiskey. I prefer coffee or wine when I do my own daydreaming and I am not a smoker, but there is something about the idea of "the writer's desk" that seems mystical and important.
When I visited the Mark Twain house in Harford this past fall, I remember internally melting when I saw Clemens's desk. I am a giant nerd of classic literature and the works of Mark Twain (especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), have a special place in my heart. So seeing his desk was very important to me. The desk in the museum was where the author kept his pen and ink, where he scribbled away whole sentences and drafted ideas. This was the place of thinking and great work. I glorified the desk and equated it to legend because the desk is symbolic of the profession. It symbolizes great expectations and work. When you sit at a desk, especially at a desk that is all your own, there is a certain amount a pressure that that sits on your shoulders. I find that this pressure weighs me down. If the desk comes with weight, then places away from the desk provide some sort of creative freedom for me.
The places that I can most productively write, I've concluded, provide some sort of intimacy and leave me in a vulnerable state. Couches are for quiet moments with friends. Bathrooms are for grooming. Nature is for connecting with the spiritual. Beds are for dreaming. They are the places of intimacy and make my writing more honest. By putting myself in a comfortably vulnerable state, my work can be a better reflection of myself. My desk will always be a representation of my mind, but it does not have to be my primary place of work. In the right state of mind, any artist can create anywhere.
