Had you told me in January or early February I’d be writing you this newsletter from inside my own office inside my apartment, I’d have thought it was a particularly cruel image to dangle before me. I might have uttered the actual phrase the above title references. Things were bad: with my professional prospects, my finances, my morale. I felt stuck in the same loops, that my book was taking too long and getting interrupted, as it does when you’re always stringing together little jobs that are never enough to sustain you and your office space is in the middle of your New York City apartment and your best working hours are when your kids come home from school and you have willingly acquired certain pets who shall remain unnamed1 who do not take kindly to your attention being elsewhere. It was certainly not the first time I’d felt a tug for a room of my own, but creating one had seemed impossible in our apartment: where, how, with what money? I had resigned myself to getting an office when my second child, now 13, was exiting college.
On a particularly hard day in February, something shifted, and I started to see possibilities where I hadn’t before, specifically converting our dining room—which had been converted from a small bedroom by the previous owner—into my office by walling off about two-thirds of it. For financial reasons, it still seemed impossible. For the ways my family values our time in the dining room together, it seemed impossibly selfish, and there I was in that other familiar loop, of the eternal calculation of being an artist and a mother. Trading the beloved dining room for an office was a concretization of using family resources that weren’t guaranteed to amount to much, my own sense that I was taking more than I was giving, despite being the primary parent for the past 16 years and never having anyone else but me in this family believe this calculation. But I’ve finally learned, in my 40s, to say aloud the things I want, even if I might not get them. I left my husband a shaky voice note suggesting the dining room-office swap plan.
In the end, we decided that my career and mental health was worth taking on debt for, and that like many New Yorkers, we’d eat in the living room, at a smaller table, where my office had been. We’d figure it out. On February 20th, we emailed our contractor to talk through possibilities with her. On February 21st, our apartment flooded.
This year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Wheel of Fortune card in the tarot. It’s the card that reminds you sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and there is often nothing you have done or can do to change it. It’s the card that tells you to sit tight, let the wheel of fate spin—or wait for it to do so—and just hold the fuck on, not to let yourself get too comfortable in an up or in a down, to recognize and surrender to what is out of your hands.
I’ll only say this: the insurance claim process is wild and illogical and it ended up working out, without any extraordinary maneuvering on our part, in our favor. You know the expression be careful what you wish for? Or the thinking that you might get what you want but not in the way you expect it? This office, this year, has been this. A life-disrupting flood is not how I would have chosen the arrival of a room of my own, but a moment I am grateful for imagining, for hanging on to see become real.
In late July, on a day when I was still at the J-O-B, these three sliding glass doors arrived. Technically not a wall, but the doors made one that has given me the visual barrier I need to gain enough privacy to work in peace. Yes, I mean you, Archie.
When I sent the above pic to a friend, she texted this:
I’ve spent the last month setting up the office, figuring out what it needs and how to meet those needs so it can be the space where I finish my novel, and write the next book, and the ones after that.
For a while the room was empty except for this odd orange light I bought and really like, even though it for sure will make me look like I’ve eaten too many carrots when I’m on Zooms at night; no, it absolutely did not occur to me that glass shades are usually white for a reason. From the floor (yes I have already laid on the floor in here, do you know who I am?), when turned off, it looks more than a bit like an egg yolk.
Subscribers got a peek of this a few weeks ago, but I bought a version of the IKEA Ivar shelves and finished them myself, under the direction of my friend Alyssa (as capable as she is funny; she drew the egg white above), who taught me how to, which is a bigger gift than her having done it for me. Over that week of work, I bought my own orbital sander. I got really tan (yes, I applied a lot of sunscreen, and wore a hat). I wrestled with dowels, and with one really stubborn shelf corner that simply refused to take stain.
I learned I could do things I didn’t think I was cut out for. And in the end, I have this.
I’ve been moving everything in this week, unpacking books and collage supplies and all the weird little things I keep around me when I work, all the rocks and art from friends and candles and so many boxes that hold paper. I bought this absurd little recycling bin that makes me really happy.
I shredded all my old drafts of my current novel, which were sometimes printed on the back of the drafts of the last novel.
I put away the notebooks for that novel, which was yes, kind of sad but also okay. I shredded the research I’d done for it, too. There’s a tremendous feeling of moving forward that I won’t get in the way of.
That feeling has helped me make some decisions, too, about my books, which will remain closed to manuscripts till at least the end of the year (but will be open to coaching starting in a few weeks; more on that soon). I finally feel ready to leave Instagram for a while2. I need to put my head down and work on my own work above all else. Though there are still small details to settle in the office—pictures to hang and files to be sorted—I feel ready to do that, to shut the sliding glass door and re-enter the world of my own imagination as fully as I can, while the Wheel of Fortune is in my favor.
Where to Find Me
Talk Soon,
Danielle
Archie. It’s Archie. Remember when he broke my hourglass like the demon he is? Incidentally, Alyssa saw one while traveling a few months back and replaced it for me, because she is the best.
It has helped a ton to have installed this really great blocker app, Opal, on my phone, which has weaned me from the app; I kind of dread checking it when the block is up? I use the free version and it does what it should. I’m likely going to put it on my desktop this fall, too. I found it on the rec of Alex Sujong Laughlin.
This is such a moving, extraordinary post that I’m definitely going to share it in my next links round-up. You did something amazing. You really did. I know you’re going to write the most brilliant novel in there, and I can’t wait to read it.
I am so, so happy for you! It’s a gorgeous space. And you should be SO PROUD of that carpentry!