Solicitude

When the dust of a busy morning settles I head to my blue room with a cup of tea in hand. ‘My‘ being the correct term as no one in our house is under the illusion that it is theirs. The blue room contains a fireplace and bookshelves that bump their heads on the ceiling. A grandfatherly beam stretches its sturdy arm across the width of the room connecting the fireplace to the tall bookshelves. The beam, a nod to the country I live in. The blue walls, an ode to the sun kissed peninsula I am from. A room hidden in plain sight within the footprint of our house. It doesn’t escape my understanding that to have a room of one’s own is a luxury. A place to hide and plot. A place to read and write.

When we arrived, babies and toddlers roamed the halls. The blue room was painted a musty green and yellow and was used for storing moving boxes for longer than I’d care to admit. It was eventually turned into an unsuccessful playroom, as children’s playrooms tend to be. We happily spent the early tender years of family life in another part of the house which is open plan. Open plan…the devil’s work or a delight? Depends on the day and one’s stage in motherhood and family life.

One week during the ‘open plan’ years my mother arrived from afar and my husband made his way to Turkey. When he arrived home from Turkey the once musty room had been baptized in blue and a plan had taken root. The babies and toddlers grew into young children and in doing so incrementally handed back time to their mother.

The unwelcome guest, in the form of a pandemic, arrived and in an attempt to ignore its presence we rescued our neglected books that had been languishing in moving boxes, for again, longer than I’d care to admit. Bookshelves were designed and built by my husband who is the polymath of our home and my partner in design. It should be noted that my husband is always welcomed into the blue room, as he so kindly and thoughtfully built the bookshelves, and what is a room without books?

The children have returned to school and time is once again on my side. What will I become and discover in this room? Only time will tell. I hope you have a place set aside to call your own. It may be a grand room, a green house, a cozy nook or a sunny window sill. Wherever ‘your room’ is I hope you visit it often and that you find solace and hope in that hidden place. Happy Monday from the blue room.