Where I Write: Exotic to Mundane

Marsha Masseau

Of course, my ideal writing spot could be a place I’ve not yet been. A treehouse in the Olive Groves of Italy or a yacht anchored in the Caribbean Sea; both possible. 

In a creative writing class, we were asked to describe our ideal writing space. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, my answer didn’t come as effortlessly as I expected. I’ve been driven to get an A+ in that class and I needed — really needed — to find the perfect answer. So, the question has been swimming in my mind all week. Where is my ideal writing space?

The answer came in slow drips in tandem with the perking coffee. I grabbed a mug of java and shuffled to the living room, where I always start my scribbling. I landed on a sunless lump of cushion on the loveseat (bought off Kijiji), which seemed a more fitting beginning to my day than the sun-filled office on the east side of the house. Depending on which way the stars align, I wake to find my house is either the perfect setting for writing or nothing but a structure on which I rely. The answer to my ideal writing space — has got to be more exotic than the solitude of these four walls.

So, I searched my memories and my dreams for something esthetically satisfying. Soon I found my pen didn’t move fast enough. Inevitably, I relocated to the office. I passed the kitchen and got food. 

Thinking.

Paris could be the answer. That café in Montmartre where I sat at a small circular table facing a group of painters in the park. Yes, that could be it. The Paupers Press journal; the black ballpoint pen; the strong, bitter petit café that lasted an age. The croissant (which tasted infinitely more decadent, en Paris!) flaking all over the pages as I sketched and wrote and wrote. Tellement parfait. That could be it.

Or it might be fifty feet from the Mona Lisa. On a two-hundred-year-old window seat at the Louvre overlooking a courtyard and bathed in the sounds of a multilingual crowd snapping pictures, drunk on the scent of old wood and da Vinci. I remember how the ink flowed silky, like crème caramel. Oh, the pages I filled, as the crowds changed, the shadows deepened, and the day slipped away.

In public, I’ve found I can be a writer without drawing much attention to myself and pass as an average Joe if the place is adequately busy. I get a coffee or tea (again, I think this is relative to the stars) and sit on the edge of a chair at an inconspicuous table. Slipping a laptop out of my bag with seeming indifference is easy enough. I might be a student (which I am, actually), an office worker perhaps, nobody worth talking to. If I forget myself and appear interesting, someone usually reminds me by asking, “what are you writing?” which happens to be my cue to leave. Truthfully, that rarely happens.

I’m still thinking about my question — what is my ideal writing space?

A better answer than Paris may exist. What about that spot in the front seat of the tour bus rushing through the mountains of Costa Rica — legs jammed between travel bags and my fingers salty from plátano chips; scrawling reflections between stops, putting my pen down only for photo ops and nearly losing it out the open window. Interviewing the driver and the tour guide in my rudimentary Spanish. Detailing every kilometre of the journey through the rainforest from lush foliage and rushing waterfalls to which monkey species travelled the canopy and which birds sang those high-pitched songs — all of it a humid tropical bath for a writer’s soul. Riding shotgun is an exemplar of the adventurous writing space.

Of course, my ideal writing spot could be a place I’ve not yet been. A treehouse in the Olive Groves of Italy or a yacht anchored in the Caribbean Sea; both possible. Then again, the answer may lie closer to home. The family camp at Lac Antoine. Peaceful and secluded, on a blue hammock strung between two narrow conifers swaying in the breeze with the smell of sundried pine needles permeating every breath. The brim of my hat shading pages of notes, my parents arguing over something trivial in the background. Simple and comforting. Entirely plausible.  

As I weigh the choices, I notice an edge of a yellow sticky note has come loose. I pull on it. I am sucked, inadvertently, back into my literal surroundings — a black vinyl chair, a widescreen monitor propped up on two fat books: House of Leaves and Under the Dome. A long white desk inhabited with islands of sticky notes, pens and markers, a hot cup of tea halfway gone and downtempo beats taking the edge off the solitude. On the wall, a string of lights twinkle. Next to them hangs a framed print of a quote that says: find your voice. And it strikes me that where I am hardly matters so long as it allows me to find and express a voice wholly my own — it’s not a glamorous answer, but it feels right.