I didn’t have my own Room growing up.  At any given time, all the way up until my sibs left for college, I shared a room.  That wasn’t a curse, even if at the time I would have argued so.  I shared a room once with my brother Fran.  Bunk beds with rocket mattresses.  I had bottom bunk and wondered what would happen if life was all a dream.  But my big brother was there, three feet above me, and when I shared this with him he said, “Don’t worry.  I think about that, too.”  Comfort.

I shared space with my sister.  We’d talk, laugh, and listen to music for hours on end.  One night, after she saw a scary movie, asked me in the dark if she could sleep next to me.  Awestruck that she asked for my company, I said,”Sure” and happily moved over in my twin bed.  She and I slept back to back that night.  And I remember smiling, loving the feeling of being needed.

But I always wanted my own space.  A bed to lay in the quiet.  Walls that had my favorite things hung, or nothing at all because I chose it to be so.

It was years ago that Nick brought up the idea of making one Room my writing space.  I snorted, doubting we’d ever have the space or time to do it.  Years later we found ourselves in an old home, with more space than we knew what to do with, and a Christmas gift that toppled me off my feet.

It’s been months in the making, it needed new paint, a window had to be replaced, and a lot of moving, purging, and organizing.  But, it’s finally in a place that I feel ready to share with the world.

Now, let me first say that I’m not posting these photos because I believe them to be the most creative or colorful trinkets or decorations.  I post it because years ago, I would have loved to see a space created solely for the purpose of being.  Not the kitchen for cooking and gathering.  Not the living for entertaining and talking and television.  Not the bedrooms for sleeping.  A room meant to be purposeful; a place to bring ideas to fruition and dreams to be laid in.  Virginia Woolf called it a Room of one’s own.  I simply call it my Room.  Room.

Room.

Space.

In this crowded 7 billion and counting world of noise and multitasking, this space is for me to think, read, write, Be.  A place for my things to be laid out so I know what I have and use it.  An organized corner of the universe that waits for me.  Women are told the opposite.  Never create a scene.  Don’t take up too much space.  Apologize for the rain.  Create for others, but not yourself.  Care for others, and leave yourself to last.  Buy things, new things, impressive things.

Most of my things aren’t new.  They’re used, and beautiful.  Clean and still useable.  I like piecing them together until it feels right to me.  The environment around me has to make sense in order for me to concentrate.  Most places don’t make sense to me at all.  This is the one place where I find sense.

Children are allowed playrooms.  Stereotypically, men need their “space” – TV, golfing, card playing, working out – and all I ever wanted was a Room.  With light, windows that throw themselves open and colors that fiddle the strings in my heart.

And I don’t want to explain it to anyone.  I don’t want any questions about what things mean and why.  Contrary to this public sharing, and my descriptions, I don’t want to have to defend my space in any way because the last thing my Room is going to do is attack anything.  My mind will do that via writing, but my Room?  Not my Room.

I don’t want to explain why I deliberately leave pictures of family out of my space.  I don’t want to know what would be a better color scheme or what I should slather with new fabric.  There’s no desire for me to hear what would make it more this or less that.  That’s called decorating.  This is creating.  There’s a difference between finishing touches so a room “feels” nice versus building a space that serves artistic purpose.  Each our rooms will look different, this is what mine looks like.

It’d designed with no one else’s soul in mind but my own.  I have no quotes stenciled on the wall.  I have no fancy lamps or glassy chandeliers.  My curtains are wispy pieces of silver silk that do little to keep the Cleveland winter out of my space, but they let in a lot of light and are easy to pull and push open.  Yes, I have a movie poster of Rocky Balboa with the tagline, “His whole life was a million to one shot.”  Very few people would know that the Rocky series is my favorite movie series in all the world and even I would stammer to explain why.  The politics, the class issues, the below average intelligence, the love, Adrian, redemption, life development, selfish Pauly, coming of age son, money, training scenes, THE SOUNDTRACK.  All of these combine for me to love the Rocky series immeasurably.  So much so that while I can quote Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, and bell hooks in my sleep, the only frame is of Sylvester Stallone running for his life with a sweatband on his head, converse on his feet and a poor man’s sweatsuit on.  It makes no sense.  But it’s me.  Life would be rather dull if we could explain ourselves away in sentences anyway.

Creating space also means time and commitment.  For some, for me, it also meant having a life partner who prioritizes developing my dreams and gifts.  Nick respects my writing.  He may have to work to understand it and it’s not what he would choose to read if we didn’t know one another, but by the very fact that we vowed to love each other our whole lives, he helped build the Room with me.  He put my clothes are hangers and did my laundry.  He moved the heavy things out and shouldered the heavy shelves when the closet needed painting.  He called the contractors for the new window and played with Isaiah while I carefully placed everything in boxes and meticulously labeled them for later use.

Sometimes love calls for us to recognize what would make the other person happy without that person even knowing themselves what they would want.  Upon giving me my Christmas gift, Nick said, “It wasn’t about money or something flashy.  I just kept asking myself what would make you excited, so excited that you had no choice but to go to the next level.  And that’s what I thought of.”  That meant secret visits to the Apple store with Isaiah poking at everything.  That meant trying desperately to hide it from me the days preceding Christmas.  That also meant enduring a lot of nights where I wasn’t so excited.

Nick’s endured a lot of my struggle.  As a partner of a writer, I know that he is often consumed with my being consumed by the world.  He is the land where I take my excess in hopes of easing my own burdens.  He’s well that must stay empty because I’m always full.  And he’s the no-choice optimist because being a writer can be so damn depressing, one has to keep sanity somehow.

This was Nick’s way of giving me wings. The only wings he knew how to build, and he tailored them to fit my back.

Dreams are escapes, but with love dreams become reality.