I am sitting at my kitchen table, my ancient, and slightly sticky, laptop plugged into the wall. The same position I have sat in countless times in the year and a half since I started this blog. The kitchen floor is recently cleaned and smelling of lemon Flash. This is not always the case. I’m more likely to gingerly pick my way around the spilt Cheerios, in an effort to not crush them. The door to the garden is open. It’s not warm, and there are dark spots of rain dotting the deck, but I’m grateful it’s still Autumn, not Winter. The neighbour’s Russian vine is a spectacular firey red and our tall, spindly eucalyptus is swaying gently in the wind.
My laptop shares table space with an eclectic variety of objects. Some fruit I bought earlier and haven’t put away, a glass of water, four conkers, a fuzzy gogo and some silver star stickers. Also the phone, my debit card and paper and pens. I’ve spent the morning sorting out landlord’s insurance and car insurance.
Until recently, I’d have had a small child in the kitchen with me. Usually sitting upside down in the armchair by the window, or leaping off it in an attempt to achieve flight. Now my soundtrack of CBeebies has been replaced by Radio 2. Despite wincing daily at the dodgy singing of Katie from I Can Cook, I’m still not sure if I like the change.
Sitting at the kitchen table and blogging has become an integral part of my life. I’ve come to rely on writing things out. I’ve written about the important things in our life, buying plane tickets, starting school. I’ve written about my hopes and fears for our trip and what it’ll mean for our family. I’ve written about not very much at all, lying under a tree on a summer’s day, swimming in the sea. The writing has been a pleasure. I’d go so far as to say it’s changed my life. It’s made me friends, kept me sane, determined my career path. I can’t imagine going back to not writing.
Recently I’ve not been writing much. And when I have it’s been short and factual. As our departure date approaches, the pressure to get stuff done is mounting. Lots of phone calls to the estate agent to sort out details, cupboards to be emptied into boxes, trips to the charity shop with yet more too-small children’s clothes, emails to be fielded from people wanting to buy our cot. No you cannot carry a cot singlehandedly on the tube. Even if it’s been taken it apart.
I’ve not written about swimming, or walking in woods, or visits to the Tower of London. I’ve not taken part in the Writing Workshop in weeks. I miss it. I miss rolling words around in my head, creating pictures, describing my feelings in combinations of twenty six letters.
I won’t get many more chances to sit at my kitchen table before we leave, emptying my thoughts into the WordPress text box. Soon the table will be dismantled and carried carefully down to the basement, hopefully without scratching the new paintwork. I’ll be busy visiting friends, squishing thermal underwear into backpacks, ordering taxis to the airport.
Very soon our adventure will begin. I shall be writing about it.
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This post was written for the absolutely marvellous Writing Workshop at Sleep is for the Weak. The prompt I chose this week was “Be present. Describe a moment, something in your now. Doesn’t have to be extraordinary, just be still and take it all in.”
