Watercolors, paintbrushes, easels, canvas, and oils—a desk was not necessary. That’s all I needed from grade school into my late twenties. In the early 80s, as I applied to elementary schools for employment, I went late at night to my husbands’ office to practice on a typewriter, then eventually bought my electric one. Thank goodness it had a backspace that auto-deleted. This Marmaduke sat wherever I could find a spot.
Later on, during a short break between jobs, I decided to take two-semester classes, Writing 101 and Beginning French, and a six-week non-credit course in Creative Writing. I used the bar area in our kitchen, perched on a tall stool to do homework and write while my son was at school, and my husband was at work. By the late 1990s, I had acquired a simple smaller used office desk, with two drawers on each side that my husband and I shared. I began to write and paint less.
When I got a ‘room of my own’ as Virginia Wolf cried out that every writer should have, I wanted my desk with privacy. Shortly after my husband and I drove back to Illinois to visit family. While there, I found this little treasure in the cellar of my grandparents’ farmhouse. It wasn’t exactly a writing desk, but it had history, a story. I toted the desk with four water-soaked legs up the stairs to a local wood restorer. I planned to pick it up on a future trip back to Illinois from Tucson. This piece was probably a hall table or a small kitchen side table. The restorer did wonders in reviving its pale wood to a walnut luster and its surface smooth as a worn stone. I used an old table chair (found in a barn) and this became my writing space. The desk was just long enough to house my small laptop, a notebook, pens, disks, and one cat, which much of the time sat on my notebooks. We both wrote happily in my studio with no phones, no TV, and no visitors unless invited.
In time, a piece of property became available two houses down the street from where we currently lived. We bought, remodeled, and added a studio off the master bedroom as before, but a bit larger. I seriously wanted to replicate my ‘room of my own’ and I now wanted a true writing desk. The little farm table could fit in the entryway. I shopped in person locally and in other states as I traveled. Online, mail order catalogs until one day, two years later, I found it from a pop-up advertisement on my computer. The depth of the desk was narrow which I liked. Everything looked as if it could be within arm’s reach with space in between. It had three file drawers, two smaller ones, and a long middle drawer with built-in wood dividers. I called Pottery Barn and indeed they had a floor model. I threw on my shoes and went to see. I chose the white wood and the desk was delivered within two weeks. I lingered in glorious hours and days arranging files of to-be-written novels, blank and filled notebooks, cards, pens, sticky notes, an antique magnifying glass, submissions accepted and rejected, past and present short-shorts, scribbles, notes and our writers group history and so much more. One of my favorites about the ‘look’ of this desk is three of the six drawers are louvered which match the master bath and closet doors. Such perfect planning, or a happy accident?
The second feature was the extra length of this desk. At first, I hesitated because this was uncommon for an office or writing desk. It turned out to be ideal because it lent itself to my new paper cutter, a few reference books, more cups full of colored pens and pencils, and most importantly, company at each end to muse and amuse as I write.
