I’m picturing your new office as a storeroom in the back of one of those empty extremely specific furniture shops that’s a front for something, with a metal desk and a flickering gooseneck lamp, and you saying, “Ah yes. Perfect.”
I didn’t learn to swim until I was 37. Once I got the hang of it, I swam a mile a day for some time. There are all sorts of reasons I drifted away from it. One—aggressive swimmers “sharing” a lane. Deep Eddy is, I think, one of the worst places to (literally) run into these sorts. I did like swimming at the East Side Y. They don’t use chlorine, it’s four feet all the way across, and—at least back when I swam there—when school was in session it was easy to find a lane and rare to be encroached upon. Oh, and it’s an outdoor pool. Can’t hold a candle to Barton Springs, which is the only pool I go to now, and only for a quick cold wake up plunge before work. I am trying to be patient while they make repairs.
(This got a bit long... sorry) First... I can't WAIT to read your new work!!! And I hope you will always find the perfect nook in which you can write and think in peace.
Ugh. Men are always taking up more space than allotted. Yes, I AM an old salty crone.
I waged a 35-year war with unfamiliar male thigh flesh in a variety of fabrics (or worse, in humid summer, sweatily naked and hairy) in my daily DC commute...until I decided to always sit in the aisle and move if someone large started looming over me trying to get me to move in. DC is NOT always somewhere it is healthy to butt heads with strange men (but I did always have my super focused, limited width pepper spray with me). And these are just the oblivious, not the true creepers. Yes. I have...tales.
Thank you for writing! I am not as sensitive to other people as you are, but I do need space. "Other people and their elbows"--love that I couldn't possibly write in a coffee shop, either. Just the noise of the machines throws me. Glad you found a place to work during sabbatical.
An intense dislike for proximity is what flipped me to open water swimming. Under duress I will enter a swimming lane at a pool, though an indoor pool still sets me off. I cannot relax if I am worried about swimming a straight line or my long-ish legs bapping into someone.
Now you have me thinking about my home office and how I need to re-envision it for myself. I work from home because well there’s a dog (or dogs) at my feet. People are for the most part absent entirely. But then there is the laundry …
I’m picturing your new office as a storeroom in the back of one of those empty extremely specific furniture shops that’s a front for something, with a metal desk and a flickering gooseneck lamp, and you saying, “Ah yes. Perfect.”
That does sound perfect.
Your writing is so lovely. It calms me to enter into your world.
I didn’t learn to swim until I was 37. Once I got the hang of it, I swam a mile a day for some time. There are all sorts of reasons I drifted away from it. One—aggressive swimmers “sharing” a lane. Deep Eddy is, I think, one of the worst places to (literally) run into these sorts. I did like swimming at the East Side Y. They don’t use chlorine, it’s four feet all the way across, and—at least back when I swam there—when school was in session it was easy to find a lane and rare to be encroached upon. Oh, and it’s an outdoor pool. Can’t hold a candle to Barton Springs, which is the only pool I go to now, and only for a quick cold wake up plunge before work. I am trying to be patient while they make repairs.
(This got a bit long... sorry) First... I can't WAIT to read your new work!!! And I hope you will always find the perfect nook in which you can write and think in peace.
Ugh. Men are always taking up more space than allotted. Yes, I AM an old salty crone.
I waged a 35-year war with unfamiliar male thigh flesh in a variety of fabrics (or worse, in humid summer, sweatily naked and hairy) in my daily DC commute...until I decided to always sit in the aisle and move if someone large started looming over me trying to get me to move in. DC is NOT always somewhere it is healthy to butt heads with strange men (but I did always have my super focused, limited width pepper spray with me). And these are just the oblivious, not the true creepers. Yes. I have...tales.
If it suits, I attach Medium Friend link to piece featuring another big, loud, sweaty, unmasked and clearly inebriated male, this one in a Maryland grocery store in Spring 2020. Unmasked Guy actually inspired me to design an imaginary feast when lockdown prevented a real feast. SEE: https://medium.com/@ma_murphy_58/the-man-holding-a-giant-hunk-of-salmon-a-lockdown-era-imaginary-feast-10c27bd702e6?sk=f401d08c2ea8c715ad319deee3e8e751
Harumphh! I do NOT miss a crowded daily commute.
Thank you for writing! I am not as sensitive to other people as you are, but I do need space. "Other people and their elbows"--love that I couldn't possibly write in a coffee shop, either. Just the noise of the machines throws me. Glad you found a place to work during sabbatical.
An intense dislike for proximity is what flipped me to open water swimming. Under duress I will enter a swimming lane at a pool, though an indoor pool still sets me off. I cannot relax if I am worried about swimming a straight line or my long-ish legs bapping into someone.
"Backstroking gentleman." Please. There's no such thing. :-)
lines and lanes - this is great!
Now you have me thinking about my home office and how I need to re-envision it for myself. I work from home because well there’s a dog (or dogs) at my feet. People are for the most part absent entirely. But then there is the laundry …
“You’re not my real swimming pool ….” ♥️