Battling the
nausea that arrived with some stray virus this morning, I spent the afternoon
topping up on fluids and having a long sleep. I surfaced in the late afternoon,
and no sooner had I sat down in my new study - to consider my woozy state and
the room’s chaos - than the landlord arrived to do some urgent repairs. While
he mended broken things, I relieved another box of its contents: magazines,
books, model boats, and Dorothy the Dinosaur (who belongs to K-girl, but lives
with me).
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We’ve been here just over a week, and both my husband and I have reflected on the
reasons why this particular house resonates so strongly with us. Mostly, we've remembered that our
grandparents lived in similar houses, i.e. weatherboard, wooden floors,
bull-nosed verandas shrouded in lattice, a wide, lead-lighted passageway
running the length of the building. This familiarity brings with it a feeling of
comfort, of being at home.
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Back in the
early 1990s, I lived in a house very similar to this in the Perth Hills. My writing room had French doors that opened onto a verandah and beyond that a
beautiful garden. I loved that house, even though I didn’t own it. My writing
life was very rich during the time I lived there.
This new study,
in yet another rental, has French doors opening onto a small, weather-beaten
verandah and a garden bed featuring a flowering jacaranda tree that has
carpeted the pathway purple. Despite my spinning head, the unpacked boxes, the
shambles, I’m optimistic. I've completed two more degrees since I lived in the Hills, it's time to lose the word study. My new writing room in this new house is full of promise.
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