Long Weekend Hybernating in the Office

I’ve been living in the office this long weekend. Monday is a holiday here. Just me upstairs and the painters downstairs. Heady paint fumes wafting up the stairs, through the silent corridors and into the room. Sunlit in the afternoon, the light reflecting off the wooden ceiling.

My third rendition of the literature review is due Tuesday morning, and the Director of Services has graciously given me full access to her office and computer this weekend. (My baby computer, BB, has an itty bitty screen.)  I feel important just sitting in her office, using her chair, clicking her mouse.

I love the silence of this place, interrupted by the floor’s gentle creaking when I walk to the kitchen for tea. Always more tea, to fight off the cold, warm up my hands for faster typing. Inexpensive black tea, anything, will do when it is cold. (One of the things I miss most so far is my favorite tea.)

In middle school and high school, I used to stay after school most days. I didn’t play sports and many clubs were at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am. I had no reason to stay so long, but the quiet soothed me. A space so riotous, electric with angst during the day, suddenly calm and tranquil. When I taught in a high school, I still liked to stay late, when the hallway lights were dim and classroom doors were darkened, closed; a building napping.

It’s also that I had nowhere particularly exciting to go. So it is much the same here, with my hostel two blocks away from my practicum site, and my days filled with research and not much else. I spent 49 hours in the office my first week, and 9 hours a day during the holiday weekend. I feel like a writer, a Real Writer, sitting in front of the computer in the dark silent house. Though I’m just making a spreadsheet, and rewriting a literature review. It’s the little things.