A room of one's own

The year continues to progress slowly and steadily in our home, as my beloved gently reclaims his health, but outside the the world is buzzing by. Finn starts back at school in a few days, the same day I begin a new job.

This is also the same day Luka starts regular care in the arms of a wonderful French woman named Priscille. The same week that I decide I will try expressing breast milk for my baby, something I never did for Finn. The same week that we brought a cot into our bedroom and have very sincere plans of encouraging Luka to use it. All little steps away from attachment parenting, a model I so strongly wanted to commit to without hesitation.

But the thing about life is that it doesn't always, if ever, meet your expectations. I didn't expect that my beloved would develop a chronic illness and take months to recover. I didn't expect that this would bring up all sorts of delightful fears for me that I am, slowly and gently, now allowing myself to deal with. But that is for another post.

Today, I want to show you my newly discovered island. It is such a little thing, my new desk, so generously given to me by a dear friend. It colonises the corner of my son's room but as we have but a wee apartment at this point in time, it is the most space I can find. I plan to share it with him, but it is really mine. Such a little thing, but in the sea of my life right now, it feels like a genuine place to retreat to, an island of calm with the radio tuned to ABC Classic FM and my laptop always at the ready. It isn't a whole room, as Virginia would have liked, but it is a corner and feels every bit as precious. It has shored up my mental, emotional and creative health like nothing else has in months.

And I just wanted to share it with you.