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Creativity Handbook

Creativity Handbook: JLP’s Journal for a Creative Life. Find your Creative Personality Type, Daily Inspiration, Storytelling, Filmmaking and More

compulsive decorating

I want to thank all my friends for the encouragement you've given me about writing these last months. All of the comments you've shared and books you've given me have been so helpful. Last week my husband got a computer working in my office again (I think mine broke down in July). This delays my need for a laptop and will save me daily trips to the library. Now all I need is to make my office look like a place I want to be.

Several of my friends have these lovely offices that escape looking very office-y at all. They are like little refuges, sacred spaces of beauty where you-being-just-as-you-are is the most beautiful thing in the room. It inspires me, and I wonder, how do they do this? I don't profess to know, but I am going to start with a fresh coat of paint. Right now, everything except my desk is in the center of the room, walls bare, carpet needing a cleaning after moving the furniture.

I always do things like this when I'm avoiding other, more unpleasant things that I said I would do (like write my will). It's compulsive avoidance, and my roommates lived in dread of it during finals week in school. But I keep trying to convince myself that this is different, that it's a new opening calling me into action. Whether or not I'm avoiding things, I certainly sense a compulsive edge to this project. It's as though I need my dwelling place to reflect back to me who I am, so I am reminded by my environment in moments of forgetfulness. So there's an alignment between my interior and exterior worlds. Space for writing included.

So we're painting, probably Monday. I'm cleaning out things, making room for new. One half of the room will still be set up for business, the other half for writing. It will be a concrete reflection that a transformation has occured, that in a similar manner I am slipping into a cozy corner of my time a place to write.
UncategorizedJen Lee