Most of my blog writing happens in my new office, a bedroom that my wife painted to look like the outside of an English Tudor cottage.
It is a Fortress of Solitude for me, particularly when things are getting too parenting heavy around the house. More than once in the last two months, I've escaped here in order to make myself less likely to yell at my children, say something mean, or decompress when my depression hits me. I almost always lament it when I have to leave, and I will not confess how many times I've fallen asleep in my overstuffed armchair whilst reading (basically always).
Within this room and its book-coated shelves reside almost all of my obsessions. The decor, obviously, shows my Anglophile side. Because of my long-standing love affair with books, I even have my video game obsessions represented in novel form. I have my fantasy and science-fiction books crammed into one pocket, my Shakespeare analyses filling a shelf. (There are so many copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare that I actually don't know how to put them all together and have the other Shax books fit.) I have comics and novels about comic book characters, a shelf packed with philosophy and history, a collection of classics (most aren't "the classics", however), and even a special shelf, away from the window so that sunlight doesn't hit them, topped up with old editions of poets I love. I have copies of Milton's works from the late 1800s, as well as a century-old copy of Hamlet that a student recently gave me.
The room is the most thorough example of "me" as I can conceive.
The feeling I get when I'm in this room (except for when my computer isn't working right) is contentment. I don't feel happy, per se. That is a rare feeling for me, and one that comes through in occasional bursts of energy and enthusiasm. (I think I was happy tonight; I was seeing my kids after parent/teacher conferences put them at grandma's house for a sleepover, so I was missing them. We didn't have anything else to do, and they weren't being pills about having to eat food. I was in a good mood, and things went well. So I believe that's what it is to be happy.) So the room isn't my "happy place", but it is the area where I feel a great deal of contentment.
Part of this comes from the fact that, of all the enormous things we had to do to get ready to move into New Place (a Shakespearean allusion), Gayle made it a priority to paint my office. Originally a Pepto-Bismol pink, we knew we needed to get this room painted before we could move in the six (!) bookshelves and enormous desk we had purchased. As a practical matter, we needed to get it taken care of first, since a large portion of the garage (where we were storing all of our belongings) was an nigh-endless array of my books. Without a place to put those, we couldn't get a lot of other stuff taken care of.
Gayle dedicated nearly a week to painting the office, buying sample paint in order to give the "wood" a level of detail that I never would have thought about. We bought a new faceplate for the light switch, one that was more in line with the decor. I have a couple of bronze lamps that fit in with the atmosphere, and a clock that says "London" at the 12:00 spot. There's a beautiful drawing of the Tudor rose hanging above my window now, and a large puzzle (cheaper than a print) of James Christensen's "All the World's a Stage" painting. I even have a picture of Jesus staring down from one of the bookshelves.
If ever future generations wish to know what I valued, they need only preserve this room. That makes me wonder, however, what other people do to show their obsessions--and how permanent are those decisions?
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| My own piece of England. It's now filled with books and sundries. |
Within this room and its book-coated shelves reside almost all of my obsessions. The decor, obviously, shows my Anglophile side. Because of my long-standing love affair with books, I even have my video game obsessions represented in novel form. I have my fantasy and science-fiction books crammed into one pocket, my Shakespeare analyses filling a shelf. (There are so many copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare that I actually don't know how to put them all together and have the other Shax books fit.) I have comics and novels about comic book characters, a shelf packed with philosophy and history, a collection of classics (most aren't "the classics", however), and even a special shelf, away from the window so that sunlight doesn't hit them, topped up with old editions of poets I love. I have copies of Milton's works from the late 1800s, as well as a century-old copy of Hamlet that a student recently gave me.
The room is the most thorough example of "me" as I can conceive.
The feeling I get when I'm in this room (except for when my computer isn't working right) is contentment. I don't feel happy, per se. That is a rare feeling for me, and one that comes through in occasional bursts of energy and enthusiasm. (I think I was happy tonight; I was seeing my kids after parent/teacher conferences put them at grandma's house for a sleepover, so I was missing them. We didn't have anything else to do, and they weren't being pills about having to eat food. I was in a good mood, and things went well. So I believe that's what it is to be happy.) So the room isn't my "happy place", but it is the area where I feel a great deal of contentment.
Part of this comes from the fact that, of all the enormous things we had to do to get ready to move into New Place (a Shakespearean allusion), Gayle made it a priority to paint my office. Originally a Pepto-Bismol pink, we knew we needed to get this room painted before we could move in the six (!) bookshelves and enormous desk we had purchased. As a practical matter, we needed to get it taken care of first, since a large portion of the garage (where we were storing all of our belongings) was an nigh-endless array of my books. Without a place to put those, we couldn't get a lot of other stuff taken care of.
Gayle dedicated nearly a week to painting the office, buying sample paint in order to give the "wood" a level of detail that I never would have thought about. We bought a new faceplate for the light switch, one that was more in line with the decor. I have a couple of bronze lamps that fit in with the atmosphere, and a clock that says "London" at the 12:00 spot. There's a beautiful drawing of the Tudor rose hanging above my window now, and a large puzzle (cheaper than a print) of James Christensen's "All the World's a Stage" painting. I even have a picture of Jesus staring down from one of the bookshelves.
If ever future generations wish to know what I valued, they need only preserve this room. That makes me wonder, however, what other people do to show their obsessions--and how permanent are those decisions?
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