I have a little writing desk next to this door. Actually, it is an old Singer sewing machine–the kind that is folded away inside a wooden table with drawers on each side and ornate iron scrollwork for legs. It used to belong to my grandmother, who would probably have approved of the fact that I put a typewriter on top of it. She, like me, was more of a writer than a seamstress—though not unable to sew when the urge struck her.

I set the typewriter on top of the sewing machine so that I could use it on those days when computers are getting me down, and I set the sewing machine next to the door so I could look out at the lawn, and the trees, and my little potted plants, which, by the way, are the perfect antidote to a technology-overdose.

This is the first year I have ever “grown” anything. It’s the first year I have fallen in love with little starts at the farmer’s market or nurseries, the first year I have so-carefully nudged them out of their plastic cartons and nestled them with gloved hands in their prepared bit of soil, the first year I have hovered over them day after day checking for water levels and signs of health—and probably, the Negative Nellie in my head says, the first year I will KILL ALL OF THEM. I just have to shush that voice when it crops up, though… no matter what happens, it will have been a learning experience, and so far they are all just FINE.

The pot most visible from my post at the sewing machine holds my strawberries. Oh, my beautiful strawberry plants–what were blooms in mid-April are growing enticingly more and more strawberry-like by the day. Of course, my landlady has informed me that the deer who frequent the property will most likely eat them any day now. Well, there’s that voice again. Oh, and now it’s also reminding me that just buying a pint of strawberries at the farmer’s market yields more strawberries than I may see all summer, at about half the price of the strawberry plants. Hush, voice. Don’t you know that part of what I was buying was experience? Can you really put a price tag on that?

I sometimes wonder, as I’m sitting at my desk, what my strawberry plants think of this very, very wet spring/summer we are having in Oregon. Because there they are, reaching heavenward, protecting their developing fruit, and every other day the sky just opens up and dumps on them. For all I know, they love these storms. But I can’t help thinking, that if I were they, I would not like to sit around outside with my arms outstretched while God poured buckets of cold water on me. I mean, at least if I did that I would have the option of coming inside and drying off—they just have to sit there and take it.

Then again, maybe that’s in their favor. They don’t have the illusion of shelter to make themselves think they are safe from the elements–or to think that their existence is in their own hands. We humans, on the other hand, build ourselves bigger and bigger shelters against wind, rain, and God—until our shelters become so elaborate that it takes earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornadoes to remind us that wind, rain, and God are not yet quite irrelevant.

But, I remind myself, strawberries don’t think (probably), and when I reach the point that I am genuinely concerned about their feelings I know that I have been sitting at the sewing machine too long. Which is just as well, because by then it’s time to move on to some other task around the cottage–like making dinner, perhaps. Or perhaps, if I have the luxury of a few hours with nothing to do, lying on the couch where I can see out this door, and then taking a nap. (This doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, it’s heavenly.)

After a long work week, I’ve spent most of this, the first day of my “weekend,” perusing my favorite online haunts and feeling simultaneously inspired and stifled. Do you ever feel that way? Like you are simply bursting with creativity that wants to get out but have no solid direction in which to let it go? The fact that my house is a bona-fide disaster doesn’t help, because I really feel that my first project ought to be getting it tidied and sorted and spic-and-spanned. But of course as soon as that desire enters my head, I turn away from my computer and look at the dish pile and the kitchen table covered with lots of nonsense items and the random jackets and books strewn across our living room–and suddenly looking at a few more websites seems like a much better idea. This is my general attitude towards projects–if they look too big, I don’t want to start them at all. Which is, of course, incredibly silly… but it is the way I have operated since I was born and likely will be till the day I die.

Anyway, one of the gems I turned up today was Pinterest. I stumbled onto it through Geninne, and then remembered I had gotten an invitation to join it from Natalie Jost (Thanks, Natalie! ) way back in June (a.k.a. “the season of extreme of busy-ness”). So I finally joined, and started my own little inspiration board. There’s not much there yet, but I am so excited to see it grow. And I know it will, because I am constantly stumbling on beautiful images and thinking “I wish I could hang on to that.” Well, now I can.

I should probably go eat lunch now. Gil has been at school all day, but he’s getting back any minute now, at which point we’ll be heading out into the afternoon gloom to search thrift stores for Halloween costume components. We’re thinking Batman and Poison Ivy. (I feel I’m obligated to be Poison Ivy at least once in my life considering that I have red hair and my husband is a complete Batman nerd.)

So, goodbye for now! Let me know if you’d like an invitation to Pinterest, as I haven’t sent any of mine yet.

And then reality hit.

You see, while a normal, sane person might look at a day like today—a day completely free of prearranged responsibilities—and say, “Hey! Today is my opportunity to do all kinds of things! I can get together with friends, I can write, I can draw, I can take care of projects that have been nagging me,” I took one look at today and said, “Too many options. Overwhelmed. Going back to bed.”

And that is how I found myself, after I returned from taking my roommate to the train station this morning, sleeping away half the afternoon. You could argue that I needed the sleep, but all the same, it left me feeling bitter at myself for wasting all that precious time.

One of the nice things about having a confining, crazy-making school schedule, I’ve discovered, is that it tends to crowd out all the ways you could be spending your time and focuses your attention on the task at hand: completing schoolwork. In that way, it actually removes responsibility. It also prevents you from sleeping through the whole day.

There I go again—eyeing that grass on the other side of the fence. Don’t worry… in a few weeks I’ll be longing for summer break.

…

I was afraid of that. It was a romantic idea and all, but now that I’m sitting here staring at this blank entry field I’m wondering if I made my promise in a moment of misguided fervor.

I’ll talk about my room.

The room that I share with another student named Tiffany is on the bottom floor of our house. And by the bottom floor, I really mean the basement. Right outside our door is a little hallway, and off of that is the main room of the basement.

Our room has a huge walk-in closet on one wall, big enough that even divided in two it provides each of us ample storage room.

My side of the room has a bed, a bookcase, and a wee wooden writing desk that I found at Goodwill two days before I moved in. I absolutely love my desk; it has tiny drawers and a leather writing surface that pulls out to make more room.

The wall above my bed and my desk is covered with a collage of photographs and two drawings that I did in art practicum this quarter. Directly above my bed is a set of four mirror tiles arranged in a diamond pattern that were here when I came—and they’re glued to the wall.

The wireless internet modem is upstairs, in the kitchen—which happens to be directly above Tiffany’s bed. This means that if you sit on Tiffany’s bed, your internet connection is just about perfect… but it wanes a little bit with each step you take away from that spot. By the time you reach my desk on the other side of the room, your connection is iffy at best.

So you can imagine how it is out here in the basement hallway, where I am sitting because Tiffany is already in bed, and I do not want to disturb her with my ticker-tapping and my bright computer screen.

Come to think of it, I guess all that is just my way of saying that I would kind of like to get up off of this cold, hard basement floor and go to bed. So I think that is what I will do. G’night.

P.S. Tonight we watched Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. It was very interesting. It’s a very quiet movie, but I think I liked that about it.