Space, Light and Order

With my final day at work less than 3 weeks away, I’m sorting out how best to move around the next bend of the journey.  What to do?  How to choose?  I’ve articulated a ‘dump the bucket’ list, those job tasks I won’t miss, but what exactly will I do?  Is it possible to earn any money through the act and art of writing?  And can I do that with a laptop at the coffee shop or a legal pad balanced on my knees in the hammock?  

Knowing how easily I can be distracted, I recognize that I need space dedicated to work, so the hammock and spraypark are out of the question.  When we moved into our home two years ago, the former owners had created an adorable playspace surrounded by rainbow stripes and featuring its own blackboard wall, complete with chalk.  Keeping with the theme of the room, we set up a crib for Madelyn’s visits, and filled much of the space with the requisite Legos, doll cradle and a children’s gathering drum (gotta keep the percussionist tradition going in our family).  While my desk and computer occupied one corner of the room and its bookshelves housed the bulk of my library, it was obviously a playroom/office, not an office/playroom.    

Although I was able to produce quite a few meaningful words from that space, my writing has by necessity taken a second seat to the work at the Kroc Center, and I certainly never considered it my “day job.”  So it is fitting that as writing moves a few rungs up life’s priority ladder, it was time to take a large, deliberate step this week and move my home office out of the playroom.

Its new home is a wonderful space, a tiny bedroom at the corner of the house, filled with light.  The wrap-around desk spreads out my workspace, with cubbyholes for paperclips and stamps, a real Roget’s Thesaurus, Webster’s Dictionary and rhyming dictionary, and lots of in-progress purple file folders.  It is a vivid reminder that I, like so many of my generation, straddle between two worlds, the typewriter and computer world, the cassette tape and the Ipod world, the checkbook and the on-line banking world.  Oh, I’d better keep that thought for another column – I might need it!

Does space really matter to our creativity or the well-being of a workplace? Yes.  When the drive-through accident shut down the office wing housing the social services staff at the Kroc Center, caseworkers were consigned to temporary desks scattered throughout the building.  The ensuing rhythm of disconnection and the formation of new connection was a challenge for both staff and visitors, and they were glad to get back to the routine their own space allowed.

What should our workspace look like?  As we focused on the design for the new Kroc Center, we were functioning out of what had been bedrooms in the apartment on the third floor of the 1937 Salvation Army facility, so anything was an improvement over those digs.  I had no idea there were so many models for workplaces, such as hotel, touchdown, desk sharing, cave and commons, huddle space, booth, war room, meeting room and storage (never enough for those of us who audition for Hoarders).  We stuck with the traditional model of individual offices, but I wonder what might have happened if we’d allowed for more flexible space.  Well, the next time I design a Kroc Center . . . 

Twentieth century architect and designer Le Corbusier reminds us: “Space and light and order.  Those are the things that men [and women] need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.”  What I’m discovering with my own miniature office is that it’s possible to claim that space and light and order for our own.  It’s true in our churches, offices, and homes – light, order, color and beauty all help space to become sacred ground.  Add in the reminders of places, seasons, and people who have shaped my life, the scent of a fragrant candle, a Billy Holiday CD, and photos of the lovely Madelyn Simone – I may never come up for air!