Work in Progress: The Door

The desk in the window was making a difference. This was, she thought, down to the light streaming in and the grass and the trees. It was easy to sit there for three or four hours and concentrate on a book or a blank, naked page. It was not so intimidating as the other place.

The other space which was the back room with its big dark door. She had wanted this to be the perfect workroom with a living fire, space for shelves and tables for papers.  And, of course,  a desk for the big computer.

But there came a day when she could not pass the door without a shudder or enter that room and had to move into this room with the sunny window.

She began to think that her revulsion the back room had something to do with essence, spirit. In her life she had glimpsed and heard things that she knew where not there. She’d learned not to speak of this because of the knowing looks, the half-smiles. As a child she’d been accused more than once of being away with the gypsies.

Now she thought about this essence, spirit, Perhaps the feeling of dread came from the spirit of some eighteenth century maid or wife for whom the room was a much feared place. Or perhaps it was world flooding in through the firecracker gateway of the computer: a world which was too vast, packed with too many people, too many things, too much pain, staining the screen with cruelty,

Then she thought, perhaps this revulsion was to do with her own guilt about work undone, tasks untackled. Or perhaps it was the timid soul which knew was at her core.

The morning in the sunny window space she decided to pull herself together, to get out of the house and away from its essence, its spirit. It would be too easy, she thought, to  stay locked in and fall asleep yet again,

So she had fled the house and driven out through  trees to find a calm. strange space where she could attend  to her life, manufacturing order out of chaos and make decisions to move forward.

She thought this new strength was all about being away from the house, freeing her from the inner strings that pulled her away from herself. Away from the dull routine which made her dislike the person she had become. She knew she was not that person. She had manufactured that person to meet the low expectations of her partner. She knew she loved him in her own way, She knew they were woven into each other after so many years, love or no love. Caring for him was no different to caring for herself, Revolting against him was revolting against herself.

It was complicated.

And it was truly best to get away often from the house and its threatening back room with its dark door.  Then the rest could fall into place.