WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #9
I SAT IN MY CAR LOOKING OUT THROUGH the dust-covered, cracked windshield at a small, ground-floor corner office for half an hour last Thursday afternoon. Rosehips hung like bright cherries to their thorny brown stalks. The flowers would be profuse, and the early summer breeze would catch up their perfume and wrap it ‘round my head like an intoxicating wreath as I sat at my desk inside.
But I was not inside, not yet. I held the lease in my hands turning the papers, reading every word, initialing the bottom of every page, stalling. I had just been to the bank, moved my savings to my checking, pulled another chunk from my business account. There it was, waiting, ready for me to sign the check over. But once the deposit, insurance, utilities, T1 access, and signage was paid, I would be left with nothing. No extra for any emergency. Nothing if my car radiator cracked. Nothing if I broke my hand and couldn’t use my mouse. Nothing if my current design job was cancelled. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I would have to make business happen quickly, and I had just come from a meeting where I lost the very advertising account I had hoped would see me through spring. To top it off, I had turned down a job offer the day before—too little money, too much time.
I had walked through the sunny office twice now. The floors were warm tan poured concrete. The door to the outside blew in crackling leaves. The sun out the southwest windows was tempered into butter by the soft accordion blinds. I had sketched the floor plan no less than five times. I could imagine myself designing and writing inside that office so easily, that when I stood up from my desk, I was surprised to find myself back in the corner of my bedroom, laundry piled on the edge of the bed.
How can you imagine something so strongly and then let go of it? It isn’t like me to consider things thoughtfully; I rush ahead, think about my actions later. I’m impulsive, determined, charging through barriers. But here I was, sitting in my car, having promised the leasing agent I would be by with lease in hand this afternoon. I hesitated, waiting for a sign, for someone to call on my cell phone, turn things around, make it absolutely necessary for me to make this step, to start my business, give it a home and a place my writing could share.
Everyone talks about Virginia Woolf’s quote, that a woman needs a room of her own to write. What she actually said was, “. . . a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” (Italics my emphasis.) She looks into her purse at lunch and sees a ten-shilling note, remarking that when the letter of her inheritance and the right for women to vote came at nearly the same time, she considered the money the more important of the two. A woman cannot spend the time to think if she has to spend it worrying about how she’s going to feed herself and her family.
I got to the last page of the lease, and listened to a skate boarder slowly rolling down a long incline, the wheels clacking at every sidewalk seam. I let myself think, What if I didn’t sign the lease? What if I wasn’t sitting inside this weekend, looking out those tall windows? What would I be doing instead?
The answer is that I would have another month to write. Another month’s worth of bills already paid for. Another month of freedom.
I put the car in reverse and drove away.
