Fireside Chat: Inspiring Spaces
I often fantasize about getting away from the city. It’s a longing for quiet inspiration, reconnecting with nature, and a place to reflect that has made me seriously consider moving my family out onto a farm. Granted, we don’t know anything of animal husbandry (that’s a word, right?), and our farming/gardening experience is minimal to say the least… but I love home repairs, refurbishing things, and above all… I love the quiet. And not that artificial soundproofed quiet, but the noisy quiet of nature. With cicadas chirping, birds squawking, the breeze through the trees, frogs croaking, the crunch of dry leaves and bugs buzzing all about me. Its that kind of quiet that I yearn for. The noisy peace of outdoors.
I would love to go a year without any computers, smart phones, or video games… I imagine a whole life without them would be nice. Sure, I couldn’t run my business and design my products without a laptop. I couldn’t build my platform or gain readership very quickly… in this digital age it’s sink or swim, but I’d love to give it a try. Id love to not need all this technology that hurts my head and boggles my mind. That disturbs and distracts. That disconnects us from everything that matters.
Sadly, my family, especially my kids, probably wouldn’t be as much on board. (Though, I imagine they would love it after they stopped harping over what they were missing and started appreciating what they were gaining.) But, alas, that’s not easy move to make. So, instead of dreaming of this idyllic life on a farm, I have to start smaller… with my own mini-space: a writing studio.
Now, as it is, I don’t really have the ability to create my ideal writing studio where we live now. Luckily, we’re renters, so that’s not a permanent problem. While I could probably build a pretty awesome studio in the back yard, finding some old shed on craiglist, hauling it here, rebuilding and gradually shaping it into a dream space of privacy and peace… one of the most important elements: surrounding/environment would definitely be missing. We live in the city… and not the best part of the city, either.
So, for now, I dream, I build it in my mind: I imagine. I see a space set off from our main house, in a wild wooded area, with water somewhere nearby. It has lots of light from tons of huge windows… French doors that take up an entire wall and open up to a nice porch-patio. There’s a fireplace, a simple, but heavy refurbished desk, an antique daybed with a mishmash of gorgeously soft pillows of warm reds and oranges. There are soft throws everywhere, hardwood floors that creak a bit and layered in rugs, and lots and lots of candles and lanterns to light the space at night.
During the day it seems bright and open, uncluttered but homey, soft and summery. At night it becomes warm and cozy, with natural firelight all around. There are fireflies in the fields around me, dragonflies buzzing about the water… maybe a small pond or creek. The only unnatural noise is maybe a train in the distance. There’d be a small wood burning stove… or a gas stove if I wanted to go up a notch in impatience, lol. Somewhere to brew tea and coffee… and somewhere to store bread and butter; I like to eat.
The air outside would be scented with pine trees, lavender blossoms, gardenia bushes near the porch, a great magnolia tree out back, and climbing jasmine everywhere. And my cat would hang out there… hiding from the children. Keeping me company on late nights. An old record player would be nice… the crackle of it is so lovely. And I’d have a small space out back to paint, blank, stretched canvases, metallic tubes of paint, brushes soaking in tin coffee cans… I would paint now and then, for pleasure… but maybe the paintings would supplement my income. Be curated by some local shop that promotes local artists. That would be nice.
In my mind we’d own some big property… and the walk out to my studio would take 10-15 minutes from the main house. It would be far enough away that I couldn’t hear the kids playing and near enough that I could escape at a moments notice. It would be nice if there was a view… maybe of some great forests of pine below, mountains in the distance… anything but the city that I’m so weary of. And it would be mine… all mine. No danger of intrusions, of children breaking this or that, husbands piling clothes on the floor… it would be my very private, very personal writing space.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have this dream studio, but I believe I will… someday, insha’Allah.
Have you ever taken the time to fully imagine your dream studio? What would be the absolute necessities? What could you not live without? Is it in a noisy city, glittering with city lights? A quiet cottage? A rustic cabin in the woods? How about a mobile studio to travel the across the country? Or do you simply need a small room in the corner of your house? A cozy den with the kids playing about? Tell me about your perfect writing studio… and how close you are to realizing that dream. Can’t wait to hear from you all. Til then… thanks, as always, for reading, folks. See you by the fireside.
{This is a part of the fireside chat series. Casual conversations amongst writers about writing.}
I’ve begun a Pinterest Board for my Ideal Writing Studio… perhaps it will serve as inspiration for your own. It’s shared below. 🙂 Enjoy!
Follow Ke'lona Hamilton's board Ideal Writing Studio on Pinterest.
I wrote you a whole, long reply…then my useless internet went all crazy and lost it! But my point was, I totally agree with you….on everything. I want to try the farm life even though i know jack about it! I want the “noisy peace of outdoors.”
I was raised in the suburbs, and I although I currently live in a sea-side city, it is a crowded, highway-side sea, so it’s not the nature my soul craves. I went back home this summer, and I just soaked up everything about being there. The smell of freshly cut grass, the squirrels being insane in the trees, the rabbits that showed themselves every once in a while. During that time I did most of my writing outside. It was sooooo good.
Although I would take a den over my ‘dining room surrounded by monsters’ any day, ideally, I would like a place outside, where the grass could tickle my toes, or where I could watch the seagulls fish for their dinner.
My grandmother has a more secluded sea-side place, more than a few hours away from me. I’m considering renting out my kids…I mean, dumping them on a relative…I mean, finding someone to take care of them while I escape there. Oh, I wish!
Oh sis, great (read: stressed, exhausted, desperate) minds think alike, lol. While your highway sea-side abode doesn’t sound peaceful, it certainly does sound interesting. Quite the different environment from “back home” it seems. Have you traveled a lot? Tell me more about this new home, sis. What seems boring and mundane to you may be amazing and glorious to someone else… if only from a distance. 😉
One of the many things I look forward to in my retirement from parenthood is traveling. I might enjoy a highway seaside abode… if temporary, ha! There’s so much to the world, so much to explore, learn, write, experience. I know we should have plenty of fodder where we are, after all, it is the writer’s job to find and make absolutely everything “interesting” but it does grow tiresome, doesn’t it? The noise of everyday: family, jobs, responsibilities. We need a break!
Lately, Im finding a lot more freedom in riding a bike. I can discover peaceful places, new scenery, which helps me write. Do you get out much or do the monsters, I mean hellians, I mean darling little ones keep you busy? I am definitely wanting to see you take that little furlough to grandmas place. Sounds to me like an absolute MUST! And at the very least, go visit the sea… I miss the scent of the ocean in California. We have no coasts in Kansas, its a landlocked misery. I envy your access to water sis, I really do. Go for a swim so I can live vicariously, lol. Please?