Space racing

It is amazing how you find a place that you make your own and have people coveting it. I seem to have discovered a nice little niche for myself that has a vantage view of all that goes on in this large and convoluted office, but is still secluded and quiet enough for it to be a spot that gives me the privacy I want and still the envy of all those who come to visit. I didn’t start off here; I coveted it myself. And when I found suddenly one morning that it was mine, I moved quietly in, with no celebration or fanfare, and started putting my stamp on it.

My desk is placed against a window, which spreads strategically along my left side. I get a lovely view, chimney stacks notwithstanding, of our small yet lush garden and the parking lot, where I watch drivers play cards, sleep and eat lunch, dogs run madly about, children grub in the dirt and harried journalists walk frenziedly up and down smoking and talking on their mobile phones as if solving the problems of a beleaguered world all by themselves. Beyond the wall, the sloping roofs of the textile mill loom black and dirt-stained, yielding in the further distance to tall apartment blocks still under construction. Occasionally the tiny silhouette of a labourer stands on the very edge of the top floor, leaning up and out towards a crane or a concrete bucket and my stomach drops to the ground floor while my feet tingle in anticipation of a disaster that, thankfully, has not yet been added to my store of traumas.

Inside the vast room, there is hustle, hurry, hammering – of fingers on keyboards, of woodwork being repaired, of story ideas that really have no substance, but need to be given some as faster than possible, as is typical of all journalism. But in my little oasis, calm usually reigns; or, if it doesn’t, it is a storm generated by me myself and I. the phones will ring, the mail will pile up on my desk and in my inbox, the aggravations – both from my irascible editor and assorted others – will increase by the minute, but I am isolated in my pool of work, my earphones plugged into a CD, my mind in whatever I am doing, my eyes switching between computer screen and garden, my fingers bashing away to produce the article needed for the features section, the edit page or my blog.

And this little oasis is all mine in its personality. Regulation furniture is ugly, but art prints, nicely laminated and positioned, brighten up the softboard walls. On my desk, beside a pile of unanswered and unseen (for the most part) letters, sits a terracotta-orange and polished-chrome cat, his face fat and happy, his tail a-curl with observance, his pose smug and settled. Keeping him company is a gilt feng shui statuette, given to me by a close friend. Behind that is a small glass globe and a pen-stand that is, in essence, a large pink-red flower. All of which add up to making it a happy, colourful, bright and brilliant place to work in.

Which suits me just fine.