My eyes shift from the shelves of books to the blue glass vases in the window above my desk. I stare and remember the dump site where Dad and I dug bottles before my eyes move right again to see Mom in her blue satin dress next to me, age 4. I skim the picture John gave me of “Jesus of the People” and I see “Three Oncologists” by Ken Curri just above the Christmas picture of Betsy and her family.
"Three Oncologists" by Ken Curri
Tonight, I am too tired to string together ideas in anything solid or shaped. Instead, I sit in this space I have crafted from the representations of the things and people I love, and I let my eyes seek rest in them.
The desk Jansen and I studied in the Virginia Senate Chamber. The jogging Highland Cow that I threatened Melis I would pet as we drove through the hills of Scotland. The magazine picture of the house in a field below a gray cloud.
On the chair to my right, there’s a tartan wool blanket, and I have no idea where it came from. Beyond it is my brother’s fig tree “Newton” who has lived twenty years or more with one of us. Monty and Flora’s pictures from New Brunswick dress one wall just below “What’s Cookin” by Mary Bertoli.
I can form no stories tonight but this one of images that I have pieced together. Yet, here, I find peace.
What does your writing space look like? What images do you have there? What do you see out the window? What colors? What stories hang on the walls?