Personal workplaces; writers, too

I’ve been thinking about the notion of personal space, one’s own place. Not everyone has the same environment, not everyone follows the same path. But the need for a space of one’s own is quite common, as well as how we have own spaces during our lives.

It’s funny how this topic is going to be about the title of this blog, “before… and then…”

Before, as a child, you have a room of your own. As a teenager, however your day went, however things are are, when you feel like the whole world betrayed you, you can and go and lock yourself in your room. It can be a prison if you’re grounded, it can be a castle if you just want to be left alone.

Then, you grow up, move out, maybe live in a dorm and share a room, or you live in a shared apartment and have roommates. You can have a room of your own (hopefully). Then you mature as much as to afford yourself an apartment of your own. This is your space, more than a room, hopefully, you very own space where you can fully enjoy your privacy.

And then, you meet someone you are ready to share your space with, you move in together. (Surely, just one scenario, but common, and mine.) As a couple, and later, maybe, as parents, you have a shared place, a house or an apartment, and most likely, you don’t have such a thing as “your room” anymore. The entire place is yours, but only your kids — again, if your living arrangements allow — get to have something to call “my room”. You have a bedroom, that you share with your partner, hopefully. Unless you can afford a big house that includes separate rooms for various needs, to accomodate the habits and wishes of each family member, their own sacred spaces, and common areas, you probably don’t have a room of your own anymore.

To carve out a private space, most people have to work it out somehow — a cupboard-sized office is one example. Or claiming the kitchen as your working area — both if you’re cooking and working on something “yours” using the kitchen counter or a dining table as a desk. I like to work from my dining table, actually, in part because it offers easy access to tea, my preferred writing and thinking fuel.

I like looking at how different authors write, and how people work in general, those of us who use desks or something like a desk.

Douglas Coupland prefers to write on a plane, Neil Gaiman has a gazebo for writing, and other people who write have or had so many different setups.

The working setup, of course, is not limited to writing. This is work, in general, than many people do from their computers, or notebooks. Some need more privacy than others, and a specifically setup place for the proper state of mind.

Since I was a kid, I paid the most attention to rearranging my desk. More than the rest of the room. Moving things around, placing different books, or decorations, or notebooks, trying various containers for pens and pencils. Then all sorts of gadgets came, and my working space contracted to the confinements of a laptop screen, placed either on my lap, or on a desk. So the importance of having a chair and a desk counted, and little else. Having something to drink, too, like water or tea. Having a place to put my notebook to take any handwritten notes. Working from a cafe started to become a thing for me. The sense of this weird mix of private and public. A coffee shop itself being the public aspect, and whatever I had open on my computer, the private. Felt good to be around people, and at the same time disconnected. But still, I needed my private space to do work.

I’ve been talking here about personal space. But there’s also another aspect of it — personal time. The idea of having a room, or any kind of space to focus on the work, is not enough. Or, rather, having this kind of space also means that it accommodates you and gives you uninterrupted spread of time to do what you came here to do. It’s harder with kids, harder with the pace of life of someone with many commitments. It’s a choice, again, divided by the circumstances. I tend to enjoy a much smaller number of commitments now, one of them simply sleeping well. And so many desirable activities clash with the time devoted to sleep! Yet again, time is an important part of the equation: the luxury and the comfort and the pure need of one’s personal time and personal space.

Posted on November 29, 2020 by T

Paul Celan

Today is the birthday of Paul Celan, a Ukrainian-born German poet.

To Stand in the Shadow

To stand in the Shadow
of the Wound’s-Mark in the Air.

For no-one and nothing to Stand.
Unknown,
for you,
alone.

With all, that within finds Room,
even without
Speech.

Posted on November 23, 2020 by T

Tea: Biluochun (Green Snail Spring)

My go-to tea is Japanese sencha, but I can’t deny the pull of Chinese greens.

This morning, I had biluochun (or pi lo chun), “green snail spring”, one of the well-known Chinese green teas. While enjoying the tea, I read about it, and here, I found a legend about the tea:

Pi Lo Chun originates in the Dongting Mountain region on Jiangsu province. These days, it is also grown in other parts of China, most notably Zhejiang and Sichuan provinces, but the ones from the Dongting area are by far the best. Biluochun from other regions has larger and less uniform leaves and a nuttier and fruitier flavor.
As mentioned, the name translates as Green Snail Spring, which refers to the shape and the early harvest time. But that wasn’t the original name. This tea was first called “scary fragrance”.
Legend has it that a tea picker carried some of the tea leaves between her breasts when she ran out of space in her basket and after a while, her body heat warmed the leaves and they began to emit a strong smell.
It was renamed to the much more pleasant current name during the Qing Dynasty. An emperor visited the area and loved the tea, but did not think the name was appropriate. He renamed it to the current “Green Snail Spring.”

Drinking tea is pleasure enough. But sipping from a cup, thinking of a story, something that might have happened or not, a long long time ago, even if the story contains tea carried around between the breasts, mixing with the heat and, I’m guessing, the sweat — I don’t really know if that’s supposed to be attractive or a tiny bit disgusting… Anyway, with a myth of its own attached to it, you drink age, you drink centuries, you drink tradition. A sudden awareness of where the tea was grown, the generations of cultivation it went through, transforms tea drinking into a cultural experience, giving you a sense of tradition and of the realm of the simple things that remain unchanged, and can be relied on as often as you need them.

Posted on November 14, 2020 by T

Being But Men

On this day, November 9, 1953, died Dylan Thomas. This morning, half-accidentally, I picked up play, Under Milk Wood, aiming to spend part of the day reading it.

Here, I want to share one of the poet’s works, Being But Men.

Being But Men

Being but men, we walked into the trees
Afraid, letting our syllables be soft
For fear of waking the rooks,
For fear of coming
Noiselessly into a world of wings and cries.

If we were children we might climb,
Catch the rooks sleeping, and break no twig,
And, after the soft ascent,
Thrust out our heads above the branches
To wonder at the unfailing stars.

Out of confusion, as the way is,
And the wonder, that man knows,
Out of the chaos would come bliss.

That, then, is loveliness, we said,
Children in wonder watching the stars,
Is the aim and the end.

Being but men, we walked into the trees.

Posted on November 9, 2020 by T

Who the fun is for, and how to do it well

Seth Godin wrote on his blog, making a comparison between birthday parties thrown for very young kids (who don’t yet care about parties) and many of our interactions in adult life:

It’s pretty clear that it wasn’t for you. It was for your parents and their circle of supporters and friends. A rite of passage and thanks and relief, all in one.
Many of the interactions we have that are ostensibly for us are actually for other people. Once we can see who it’s for, it’s a lot easier to do it well.

With my kid’s birthday last week, I’m taking it very literally, of course. She turned four, the first time birthday meant something, really.

With COVID taking out the fun of social interaction, I have to ask myself, what are the elements of birthday fun that really matter, in the time when you can’t have all the normal that you otherwise would.

Rethinking and reformatting holidays and vacations is a big agenda while the pandemic imposes its limitations. Are vacations still vacations without travel?

Disco for three, with DJ and glow sticks. Trick or treating within your own home (treasure hunt now)… Just remember who you are doing it for, and do it well.