A Place of My Own

I need a good place to write.  My laptop is great, and I can take it anywhere, but for some reason, I continue to long for a space that is all mine.  The booths and tables of Panera are filled with seemingly focused people furiously typing on their laptops.  If I try to write in a restaurant, I end up "people watching" and coveting other people's desserts.

No, I need a place of my own.  Solitude is bliss.  I need a door I can close and pretty things around me.  Something like Roald Dahl's famous writing hut.

...or Edna Vincent Millay's tranquil cottage in the woods.

Alas, I do not have unlimited funds and space for a dreamy outbuilding.  I am relegated to a corner in the bedroom, and I'll have to get rid of my dresser to squeeze in a modest desk.  And, by the way, I haven't found the perfect modest desk yet, so I have taken to collecting the pretty things that should eventually fill it.

I plan on filling these with new manuscript drafts

Could there be prettier post-it notes?

Funny, the things that will inspire you.  I attended the wedding of a dear friend's daughter, and the table centerpieces were hydrangea-filled containers accompanied by stacks of of old books, creating beautiful vignettes on each table. 

Inspiration

I fell so in love with this beat up, old robin's egg blue can, that my friend sent me home with it.  I can't wait to use it when I finally have a "place" of my own. Thank you, Jarrod.

Finally, I need to be surrounded by books.  How to choose?  Impossible.  I guess I'll have to rotate.  My favorite well-worn paperback copy of Anne of Green Gables is a must, something by Richard Peck to make me laugh, and BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE to make me cry a little.

It's a Perfect Day for Bananafish...and a blog

So my first blog post is a melancholy one.  After 43 years in the high school trenches, the world's best English teacher is retiring.   His reputation as a tough educator frightened even the best of students-- and this man lived up to the hype.  He exposed me to the classics, fostered my love of reading, introduced me to the brilliant J.D. Salinger and the whole wacky Glass family.  He made me want to be a better writer.  He certainly made me a better student.  Thank God for educators who challenge us and force us to push our boundaries.

I went to "meet the teacher" night tonight.  I felt such a strange mix of sadness and joy as I sat in my favorite teacher's classroom one last time.   My son doesn't yet know his luck, but he is in the world's best English teacher's final class.