Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you, that Demon being the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound.
—William Goldman
ARoom Of My Own
It was the winter of 2001 and Toronto, Canada where I was living at the time, was deep into winter. The cold weather in Canada forces those of us who are not Canadian to huddle inside our homes. I had a room on the third floor in the house where I lived but it was still too close too everything, too many constant interruptions and it was in Toronto. Don't misunderstand me, I loved Toronto. It is a beautiful, cosmopolitan city, except it was too cold for my blood.
After weeks of gray skies and freezing cold, I developed a case of cabin fever. So I jumped on the plane for a small hot springs resort called Rio Caliente near Guadalajara, Mexico. For two glorious weeks I lived in the room pictured on the left.
I had not planned this vacation around writing but that is what I did in between the hot tubs and hikes in the surrounding mountains. Each morning, after breakfast, I would sit at the desk in front of the window and just write things down. Whatever came to mind. There was no rhyme or reason to my scribbles, no form at all. They were just words written in an attempt to describe the peacefulness, the singing of the colorful birds outside my window, the sounds of the rock filled brook flowing behind my cabin, the yoga class in the courtyard across the way.
At the end of two weeks, I had very little to show for my efforts but I had made an important discovery, more important than the lack of written volumes. I had learned the importance for me to have a room of my own.
I believe most creative people need such a room. A space where one can find him/her self again and again staring out the window. A sacred space. It can be as simple as that little room in Mexico where life happens all around you without intrusion. A quiet space to workout the kinks of everyday living, to stretch the imagination without any boundaries. A space to sit and receive the transmissions of your own creativity. Your space can be as small as your mind or as expansive as the universe. I trust it is large enough to contain both.
Photo Credit: Room #12, SEPhillips, Digital Image, 2001.