A Place To Call Your Own
Many years ago, during one of the chapters of my life when I was living on my own, I found a book called Solitude by Anthony Storr. Its premise is that we overly burden our relationships with providing for our happiness. When they fall short, we assume there must be something wrong with the relationships. But Storr disagrees. His suggestion is that what we experience in our lives when we are by ourselves is as important as what happens when we are with others. Maybe even more so.
Virginia Woolf said, “In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.” The pursuit of knowing ourselves is a solitary one. The nurturing and awakening of our creativity also needs solitude.
One way to carve out solitude for yourself is to have a place you can go that is just for you. Virginia Woolf is famous for giving voice to this idea in the late 1920s when she spoke about how important it was for women to have some privacy and some peace if they were going to create anything. It was a radical idea at the time. Her lectures became the book we know, A Room of One’s Own.
Besides privacy, Woolf also believed that women needed a personal income in order to pursue a creative life. Even though she was originally speaking to women at Cambridge University, this was beyond the reach of most women of her day. Only very privileged women had some kind of private income. Working and living independently was still rare for most women. An unmarried woman was more likely to be living with her family.
In a crowded family home, a room all to herself would have been incomprehensible.
One hundred years later, if you live with others, it’s still unlikely that there’s a room in your house just for you. If that’s the case, and you have a back garden, you could build or convert a garden shed into your very own getaway space. This was so popular for a while that they became known as She Sheds. These places of creative retreat were turned into mini libraries, art studios, some even had small kitchens for baking. They became whatever they were needed to be to fulfill their owners creative urges.
But if there is no garden space, and if there is no house space, how do you give your creativity the space it needs to feel nurtured? How do you create the peace, and some kind of privacy, that is essential for nourishing your heart and spirit?
To begin with, there are actually two kinds of privacy and space that we need and that we’re seeking. One is the physical privacy of a space of our own. The other is a psychic privacy that lets us quiet our minds, focus inwardly, and say hello to our creative muse. She is so patient. She sits quietly, waiting for the sound of the knock on the door that tells her that at last we have sought her out.
Up until last summer, I’d been living on my own for a while. Every room was mine. But even so, I created a reading corner in one room that was evocative of the kind of cozy, wrap-me-up-and-comfort-me energy that I want in a creativity nurturing space.
Last summer my daughter needed to come and stay with me for a while. That visit of a few months has become opened ended as she creates her next chapter. I’m so grateful that I have the space to be her refuge while she needs one.
But it now means that every room isn’t mine. However, I have my lovely corner. And it’s gotten better over time, as I swap out the side table and the lamp, and add a footstool. If you look around, there’s probably a corner, or a table, or even just a bookshelf that can be all yours. It will have your favorite books, a framed photo or two, and space for your cup of tea when you pull up a chair or a footstool for a quiet moment or two or three.
I have a friend who turns her kitchen-diner table into a space of her own in the early morning hours. She has a cup of tea, nourishes her heart and spirit with something inspirational, and spends time journaling, planning her day, and writing notes to dear ones. She’s made it clear to the rest of the household that this is her time for creative solitude.
Whether it’s a room, or a small carved out space, you can create a space to call your own. A place to experience some kind of physical privacy when the rest of the household is somewhere else. But more importantly, it’s a place for psychic privacy.
If you already have a space that’s yours, when was the last time you considered how well it’s working for you? You’re allowed to change things up, to revise, to rearrange, to redecorate. Or to leave everything exactly as it is.
If you don’t have a place of your own, now is the time to create one. If your nest is empty, is there a way to repurpose your rooms? Is there space in the garden for a private getaway? Is there a cupboard under the stairs? Figure out what you can do with what you have right now. Your creativity will be waking up as you begin to imagine the possibilities.
Make your room or your space all it can be to give you a sense of support, retreat, and comfort. Your muse will thank you.
