Some people have been miffed when I shut my door to write. Mom stood at the closed bedroom door, pointedly saying, "She's being
anti-social," or "She thinks she's better than her own
family." In the college dorm, floormates did much the same: "I bet she's in there
writing." Bored with my non-response, they soon cut it out. Later roommates interrupted innocently ("Whatcha doin'?") or not (kick open the door and yell, "You're
shutting me out of your life!"). This latter person -- a blocked artist -- was hard to dismiss, because what he imagined was true eventually became so.
I got intimidated. I shied. Dragged down to his level I replied just as furiously. I used other people's homes to write in. I applied to writers' retreats where I cried from sheer relief and cried when I had to go home. This escalated to his
coup de grace: "You don't love me!" One day, hearing "You don't love me!" I said, "You're right. I don't."
Adults should grant other adults periods of peace and quiet. But it seems that only some are glad to make that kind of deal. Others are rendered terrifically insecure by periods of unavailability. Hey, it doesn't mean we don't love you! We are only doing the work we were meant to do.
Kim Lozano writes, "When I started writing, I decided that I needed to be able to shut my door against the children (the sweet little darlings) and have a little place of my own. So I cleared out an old chair and table out of my bedroom and moved in a desk and bookshelves. On that upper left-hand shelf, beside the Bud Light bottle with the birthday candle on top, is a framed copy of my first rejection letter. On coolish days, I like to sit on my porch in one of my new, comfy yellow chairs ($25 each at Target) beside my peacock, Flannery."
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