Place

An empty bottle of Black Swan Vineyards Shiraz stands on the left side of my desk. The computer monitor sits on top of a 16x16 tile that matches the floor--it eases pressure off the G3 box, a horizontal rather than tower design that has no better spot to live in with the current arrangement. I'd move it onto a shelf, but then the cord wouldn't be able to reach the keyboard, and it's too out of date to allow a wireless connection. Three shelves are filled close to bursting with books on writing and books written by friends. Another shelf has office supplies, music and a shoe box that's filled with the clamjamfry that I can't quite bring myself to throw away because it might come in handy some day. To my right, Snape the laptop is shut down and closed up for the night, a combination travel computer, backup drive and photo modification/storage machine. To the right of Snape, in a place of honor, my Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles, Third Edition with corrections and revised addenda 1955. There are paintbrushes bristling up among pencils, pens and two chisels my son made in metal shop in a pewter tankard. A stuffed koala sits on top a three stack of clear boxes with different sized paperclips in each of them. In the back behind the computer collecting dust, a heavy commercial three hole punch that gets taken out three or four times a year for big jobs. There's an electric pencil sharpener that the kids use more often than I do, spare ink cartridges, game disks I never get out to play anymore, and my beloved fingerless gloves for days when my hands get stiff and cold. A garbage can that doesn't fit very well under my desk lives where a tower normally sits. A box with five reams of paper serves occasionally as a footstool when I kick one leg out to the side to stretch after kneeling in my kneeling chair for long periods. The mousepad has a skull and crossed swords. This workspace exists within a computer armoire that never closes up. Its wings hold poetry, a to do list, pictures of my children, a manila envelope that holds loose paperwork.

This is my place, my writing place. This is where I sit, and dream, and create. I like it here. That's a good thing, because a good portion of my life is spent here. I wouldn't want to spend all those hours in a space I hated.

Hmm. Those paint brushes really need to go in my paint jar upstairs.

Cancel the paintbrushes in the pewter tankard. But the chisels stay.