A Room of Her Own
By Erika Hoffman
Oft-quoted Virginia Woolf famously expressed her opinion that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Most writers remember the section of her quotation regarding the needed room—a place for creation, a sanctuary for expression, an atelier for sundry artistic pursuits. I agree. (I also concur with the part about having an income.)
Before we built our home seventeen years ago, I had no study. Our previous house’s den harbored playpens, baby swings, Brio train tracks and later Atari computer games, a dollhouse, a stationary bike, and sports equipment. Where our kids grew up —a spacious residence with all four bedrooms occupied and chock-full of stuff, we had a kitchen table used for daily dining or sorting mail or kids’ parties. The dining room table was employed in serving festive, fancier, holiday meals or, if idle, storing knick-knacks. Neither served as a writing table. No extraneous desk existed. No space for writerly paraphernalia was designated. Not an abode for even contemplation about writing! Therefore, no wordsmithing took place, except for the perfunctory, annual Christmas missive. The chore or habit or pleasure or whatever you label— composing thoughts into some order for another to decipher— didn’t have a place to happen. While my kids were being raised, my life was unrecorded, obscure. I wasn’t dedicated enough to the possibility of penning my ruminations for the sake of posterity to carve out a niche. Maybe I didn’t have a niche of time, either.
Reflecting now, I feel that without a dimension of space and time, a woman’s desire to author becomes a pipedream. If she paints, she needs an easel. If she throws pots, she obtains a wheel and a kiln. But a woman who writes…well, she can accomplish that anywhere, can’t she? Does she need a designated venue? Really? A place of her own?
To some extent, a mom can scribble her thoughts on a legal pad as a passenger during a family car trip, but will she? So much distraction lurks in a mother’s world that unless she has carved out a specific microcosm where she can sit, unburdened by domestic chores or career-related tasks or social beckonings, she isn’t going to persevere.
Tonight, I gaze around my room. Shelves cluttered with books climb to the ceiling. Two old secretaries belonging to my mom and my mother-in-law inhabit space under the windows. Two worn leather chairs, previously occupied by two miniature dachshunds, face the bookcase and computer niche. An ergonomic faux leather chair that swirls seems sculpted to my shape. In winter, a space heater sits nearby and rotates and hums comfortingly, cozily warding off the chill which permeates through drafty large windows. A bay window affords me a view of my front yard, with a birdfeeder suspended from a cherry bough, and of the street, where an occasional car motors past. The intricate Persian rug beneath my feet never ceases to intrigue me; as I study the ornate curlicue patterns, I think of distant Arabic women and their children and wonder what they think about as they sew and pull and weave this object d’art.
I love this room— a room of my own—my study. Without it, where would I be? What would I be doing? Maybe shoe shopping at Nordstrom? I don’t know, but I wager I’d probably not be writing.
A room of one’s own is a necessity for a writer, whether female or male. Solitude, while reflecting on life’s events and life’s musings, is easier to procure in a room of one’s own, dedicated to one’s writing pursuits. Solitude is needed for writing. Virginia nailed it long ago.
Erika Hoffman is a happy and long-term resident of beautiful North Carolina. She’s a member of three writing clans: North Carolina Writers Network; The Triangle Area Freelancers; and Carteret Writers. During the past 15 years she’s been pursuing “her scrivener dream,” she has succeeded in getting published 580 times. Often, she teaches an OLLI class on penning personal narratives at her alma mater, Duke University. Although Erika taught in public high schools, which takes perseverance, a sense of humor, and intestinal fortitude, Erika deems her best achievement, besides being married forever, is having raised four functioning citizens. Without a doubt, her proudest moniker is “Ama’ to six grandsons and four granddaughters. She also cherishes the nomenclature, “favorite mother-in-law,” by three wonderful people as well as being designated as a “good friend” to cherished, lifelong, genuine buddies. Mostly, she pens non-fiction narratives, educational articles, travel pieces, and once-in-a-blue moon she’ll compose a fictional oeuvre d’art. Her wares find themselves featured in anthologies, ezines, newspapers, and magazines.