Friday thing : room of requirement

Welcome to my haven.

When I quit teaching for the first time in 2019, I spent the summer repurposing my son’s original bedroom into my Room of Requirement¹. The following ten months were a blissful idyll - no planning, no grades, no parent meetings, no need to change out of pajamas for hours (if ever). I missed my colleagues & students but helped at our school library when I wasn’t watching Sons of Anarchy while eating & day drinking on the couch writing & submitting poems and volunteering at OPB. Anyway, the pandemic ironically sent me back to teaching for three more years because our US History teacher retired and my principal was kind enough to welcome me into the role. The Room of Requirement became my classroom from home until we could have our kids in the school building again.

Fast² forward to 2023 when I said a final farewell to official³ teaching and, because I had finished Sons of Anarchy really needed to stop eating & drinking all day had the time along with desire, started earnestly clearing out my kids’ rooms and creating spaces for my nephew to play + guests to relax. I decided to relocate my Room of Requirement to the bigger vacant room since we don’t really have many that people coming to visit who also need a place to sleep⁴. We had new carpet installed and I repainted the walls the same lush, soothing, soul-reviving colors⁵ as my previous office.

Room of Requirement has everything I need: Real art from artists I know, pillows, clock, water bottle, reed diffuser, extra books, chocolate (in bowl on top of books).

Big moves: I’m using the former hutch as a stand-alone shelf by my exercise bike⁶; I repainted my daughter’s old bookcase and can now display all of the titles I previously had stashed & stacked in sad hoarder fashion; I swapped out my small desk for a larger table not needed downstairs and finally set up a printer; Zelda & Fred’s litter box is discreetly positioned near the [open] window, behind a stylish screen.

Basically books, with a side of tchotchkes & cats. And cat tchotchkes.

Bird mobile, chandelier print, multiple calendars, lotions & lip balms, more pencils and sticky notes than most sane people need, old teacher chair with cushions, more real art, concealed cat poop corner…perfection.

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“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anyone but oneself.”
~ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

1. I hope this isn’t a trademarked term? If so, please become a paid subscriber and send new office name ideas asap.

2. Not really, those years felt like glacial eons in another universe but we can discuss that later.

3. I feel like I will forever bring my Teacher Self everywhere though - the kindly stern Love & Logic voice, the raised eyebrow look, the hand gently hovering-without-touching but still moving people out of the fucking way…

4. But IF you do come by and really need to lie down or even stay the night, we’ve got you: comfy bed, reading lamp, tiny water pitcher + glass, phone chargers, bluetooth speaker…

5. It might be the names as much as the hues that get me: Loft Space and Grey Mist. Ahhh.

6. I’m actually using the exercise bike! #TwoDaysInARowSoFar