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My Writing Space
by Augustus Young
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for Huib
My
writing room is on the second floor of a three-story town house. It’s
illuminated during the day by a hole I had made in the ceiling, which is
in the direct line of a lucarne,
or skylight, in the floor above. Light flows down on me like the Holy
Ghost! At night the hole is sealed off by a carpet from Morocco, and two
spotlights converge over my head.
When
I moved in M. Pellizzari, the cabinet-maker, fashioned the pinewood desk
and an accompanying choir of bookshelves. The desk is as wide as my arm
span, and spacious enough to accommodate a printer on the left side, a
wooden lectern that seats a mobile cork notice-board on the right, and the
computer screen and keyboard in the middle. Inset underneath are open
cupboards, six on each side of the space for my legs to stretch.
The
bookshelves hinge the corner of the room to my left, extending, floor to
rafters, along one third of the adjoining walls. Sitting at my desk I see
all my essential books, and since they are old friends, I can recognize
them individually, if not by title. Their size, shape, and state of
dilapidation are familiar. The remaining space is taken up on the left by
a giant cork notice-board, and a hip high shelf under which there are
twelve more open cupboards. If I wished to write standing up like
Hemingway I could do so on this surface. The wall in front of me supports
a porte-fenetre, and the
one to the right is paneled with mirrors, which reflect light from my
window on the world. The wall behind me is blank, except for a black and
white print by Yann Scott of Icarus
Falling to Earth.
The
desk fills the room, leaving a narrow corridor to walk around it. I can
reach the inner circle of reference books and writing materials without
moving from my seat. Castors on a revolving chair allow me to roll to my
bookshelves, or the window which opens on to a little veranda. I find my
mind focuses better when I don’t have to think of my back. I have to get
up to get to my pipes. The rack and box of accessories are kept in an
alcove behind the door.
The
desk faces a foothill of the Pyrenees and the vineyards. There is a
hanging garden between them and eye-level, where I can see Rue Valdeck-Rousseau.
Below me opens on to some terraced gardens, and so I can hear and watch
what’s going on outside. When I first came to Bras de Venus I lived on
Route Cap Bear and had a massive desk facing the sea. I didn’t realize how
badly the sea affected my moods and morale until I re-read the satirical
memoir (Storytime, 2003) that I wrote there. The continual changing
of the sea was a rival to my state of mind. It wasn’t so much a
distraction, but a subliminal presence, and not a friendly one.
Now,
if I look up from my desk, I’m reassured by the hills. They remain the
same, with a ragged outline over which claymore wielding Catalan warriors
might suddenly appear, and never do. The vineyards change, but with the
rhythm of the seasons. Fruition and renewal is a constant. The hanging
garden is a thicket of mimosa and russet brume where singing birds and
owls can be heard but not seen. The gardens below are well flowered all
the year round due to an artesian well, and the neighbors and their cats
and dogs are easy to live with. The fights between one another, and
cross-species, are largely half-hearted.
When a new generation of kittens
arrives, the ribambelle
crossing the wall, led by the mother-cat, is a promise of joy.
Particularly when they wrestle in the raspberry bushes, or lie in the sun
licking each other clean. And, as the kittens grow up, the caterwauling in
the dark confirms the next litter is being negotiated.
The
dogs bark to alert the neighborhood to passing strangers. Only the sad
howls of Dan, the ancient pitbull terrier, bother me. He is bereft when
his master, Emmanuel, goes out to shop or pump iron. The activities of
local people are a backdrop to my writing life, like a clock that ticks
and chimes at regular intervals. Mostly they do the same things every day
at the same hour. Even their unscheduled antics do not disturb me. When
they get drunk and quarrel loudly I take it for granted. Nothing much
happens that has not happened before.
My
writing desk, and its surroundings, enhances the circumstances in which I
work. I can relax within myself without being completely cut off from the
world outside. This seems to me a good arrangement, communal rather than
solitary. I like to think that there is nothing precious about my
occupation. I can stop anytime and give the world the time of day or
night. Even annoying traffic can be allowed its moments. A car skidding to
avoid a cat. I see it limp off. Missed!
I
compose directly on to a keyboard, which I prefer to call a clavier.
It is a musical experience, to play with a word processor. You don’t need
to figure out where the notes are. You know their place off by heart. The
relation between the fingers and the brain is an intimate one, and the
screen is where they come together to present themselves to the ear. I
make aides memoires
to myself on a pad with a felt pen frequently. It’s an old habit that has
got out of hand. The scribbles become increasingly cryptic as my writing
deteriorates. Deciphering them is one of the banes of my life.
However, I have found this practice a purpose in itself. I pin the scraps
I can decipher on the mobile notice board and, even though I may never use
them, they make me feel better. A lost notion regained. I tack the
remainder to the giant notice board above the
Hemingway shelf, and when I run out of ideas, I stand before these slips
of half-thoughts and stray words that once sang to me, if only for an
instant. What had I in mind, I ask myself?
My wild guesses are
rarely a source of inspiration, and detaching and tearing up the scraps
has from time to time proved a salutary release when their myriad
threatens to cloud my notice-board, and so I can’t check the calendar and
see my favoured postcards (currently, Picasso’s L’Homme
Ecrivant, 1992, James Ensor’sMan with the Flowery Hat, 1883.
Jacques Emile Blanche’s portrait of James Joyce, date unknown, and a photo
of Orson Welles, 1979). I’m tidying up my writing space, and that means
I’m getting closer to finishing something.
Augustus Young 27thDecember
2007
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Nieuwe bundel
Dichters,
Aalse
Pers 2010,
16p.,
12x20cm, 100 ex waarvan
50
genummerd en gesigneerd
isbn
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