Dear Mr. Webster

You know how my subhead says “Just a little note to say wish you were here?” Well, while I always wish you were here, I really really wish you were here right now. We could be christening my new writer’s garret with ink and champagne!

For a few weeks now, I’ve been using the other end of the dining room table for tying up loose ends, filing for insurance, filing for unemployment, looking for The Perfect Job, and writing my first novel (five chapters already). Don’t get me wrong, I love looking at Bill doing the crosswords and paying bills at his end of the dining room table, which he claimed as his personal workspace when he retired five years ago. But I’ve been hankering for my own spot to think and work write.

I love having epiphanies, don’t you? Here’s how this one shook out…

1. When we moved into this house, I claimed one of the upstairs bedrooms as my dressing room. It is like a large walk-in closet with a guest bed in the middle. It is pretty cute in here. And it has always had an ironing board set up, full-time, ready to press. Until today.

2. Not long ago, we reached the saturation point for the number of drop-leaf desks we could absorb. This is one that my mother bought for my darling girlhood daisy-papered bedroom in our pre-Revolutionary War house in New Hampshire. I think she paid $3.00 for it. She and I painted it white and accented it with some gold-leaf paint. Because it was 1970.

3. Said drop-leaf desk has since been refinished, but hasn’t really found a place to live. It has been stored and rather underfoot in the large first-floor closet that I laughingly call the butler’s pantry. (Thank you, Downton Abbey.)

4. And it seems I’m no longer wearing clothes that need ironing. For the time being, anyway.

Bam! Epiphany!

So here I am, writing to you, at a little desk that I’ve had since I was a girl — in a spot where an ironing board once stood. I am listening to the birds in the trees just outside the open window. I can hear Bill emptying the dishwasher downstairs. And I can smell the mulch that Jose and his brothers are spreading in the flower beds. And I can hear myself think.

The dictionary says that a garret is a small and gloomy place, for poor artists and writers.

Not today, Mr. Webster.