I’m trying to make a space for writing again.

I’m writing this in my official writing room, or at least what is supposed to be my official writing room. During Christmas it was my daughter’s bedroom, but now the daybed is back to being a place to sit and work rather than sleep, and all the things she brought with her are back in her dormitory, and it’s just me and the desk and the books and notebooks and notes and laptop. And I’m trying to feel as though this is a writing room again.

I suppose I’m also trying to feel as though I’m a writer again.

It’s only the beginning of March, but this semester has already been so eventful. I feel as though I’m living in the middle of a windstorm. Among other things, there have been medical problems to deal with, and in the midst of it all I’ve felt as though my writer self has gotten a little lost. She is wandering at the top of high cliffs, in this wind that is whipping her hair back and forth, pulling at her coat, sending her scarf streaming out first one way then another. She is clutching her hat and trying very hard not to fall over the edge. She is a brave soul, but she has been buffeted by just too much.

And here I am in the meantime, the practical part of myself that works and pays bills and tries to save for the future, that grades student essays and makes lesson plans, and schedules medical appointments, looking at her wandering at the top of that cliff. And I feel responsible, as though I need to catch her hand, pull her back. Poor Writer Girl. What shall I do with her?

I think the only solution is to write again. And that means I have to make a space for writing in my storm of a life. I need a rock and a lighthouse. I suppose this desk and the laptop on it will have to do. The desk is the rock, the laptop is the lighthouse. And my job is to keep the light going, because there might be lost ships out there somewhere.

I’m quite sure I’ve let this metaphor run away with me. Metaphors tend to do that — they steal away the thing you were trying to say, and they tell you, Just go with it. It’s poetry.

Anyway, where were we? In my writing room.

The thing is that my brain doesn’t work right if I’m not writing. Somehow I need the activity of putting words on a page to recalibrate my brain, which makes it sound as though my brain is a compass, but not the old-fashioned kind, which doesn’t need calibrating. It’s a modern electronic compass, and sometimes it doesn’t point north anymore. And then my ship gets lost, and there are the rocks . . .

Now I’ve done it again, let the metaphor run way with me (or sail away with me), but honestly there is such a pleasure in writing these words and sailing away with metaphors, because here I am writing again and it feels like standing on that cliff, on a perfectly sunny day, and seeing all the sailboats down below, with puffs of wind blowing them here and there. Somehow, writing is exercise for a part of my brain that doesn’t get exercised otherwise. There is a part of my brain that simply loves putting down words and feeling the flow of them, like a river flowing to the sea or a scarf flowing through my hands.

Of course, making space for writing is not just about the physical space of my office. It’s about time as well, and I really have no idea when I’ll be able to make the time. But if I can make the space, I can make the time somehow. Anyway, that’s what I’m determined to do. And in the meantime, I’m going to make some changes to this room. I’m going to add a bookshelf, because I have piles of books everywhere. And I’m going to add a stand for my printer, for paper and the other supplies a writer needs. Because sometimes the best way to start a new habit, or restart an old one, is to redecorate.

There is something I realized once that has stuck with me, and maybe it will stick with you as well. Here it is:

In order to write a book, you have to become the writer who can write that book.

That goes for short stories, poems, essays — anything, really. In order to write something, you need to become the writer who can write it. Setting aside a space for writing won’t make you into that writer, but it will give you a place where you can transform. Where you can sit and work and grow into the person you need to be, in order to write the next thing. A writing room is a place of transformation. Who knows what you will become . . .

And now I have sat in my writing room, playing with metaphors and putting words down on paper (or rather, a laptop screen), and it feels as though a part of my brain has breathed out again — as though it had been holding its breath, and now it can exhale in relief. It feels as though I can see farther than when I started to type, and as though when I go to sleep, I will dream of lighthouses.

(The image is The Veiled Cloud by Charles Courney Curran.)