Where I Write

Today a wonderful thing happened: I found a perfect place. There are perfect places in the world. I believe strongly that under the kitchen table is one of them, along with the Mulberry Riverwalk in Braselton, Georgia, just to name a couple. Today, I add to my list the coffee shop I rediscovered in my hometown area of the Quad Cities. We’ve lived back in the Midwest for two years now, and I had not yet found my writing place. Today, it has been found.

I’m so sentimental about where I do my writing. Then again, I’m sentimental about most things. My personality likes things to stay the same. I like what I like. I like traditions, routines, and am highly affected by my environment. I began writing about the Hewletts and the Existence when we lived in Georgia. That was a long time ago. You know, way back when Borders was still a place you could go into and buy a book (or, in my more often instance, a place you could go into and write a book). So, from the beginning, I wrote at the kitchen table, and at the Borders. I tried other places, but couldn’t do it. A lot happened there at the Buford Borders. Not to be dramatic, but it’s where I got to know the Hewletts, and one time I even sat with someone while they died in the parking lot. Borders was important and dear to me. That’s why when we moved from Georgia to Colorado, one of my top priority tasks was to locate the Borders. Unfortunately this Borders was inside a shopping mall. Not my favorite thing. But it was still a Borders; the tables were the same, the chairs were the same, the drinks were the same, it was Borders Bookstore and I was able to be at home there. I finished the first installment of The Adventures of the Brothers Brave and Noble there. I remember so clearly the night I finished. When the last scene and sentence came into my head I felt so many things. I loved it and new it was wonderful, but I also was so nervous that I had to get up and walk away from my Borders-brand table and my Borders-brand chair before I could type that last sentence. My hands were shaking and I actually took a detour towards the restrooms because in a flash of nerves I considered getting sick. It was the end. The big “The End” end. And I did it all at the Borders and the kitchen table.

Then, news broke that Borders wasn’t doing so well and would be permanently closing their doors- everywhere. I was angry. I “liked” all the Facebook articles about why Kindles and Amazon were from the Devil and what Jesus would do is shop at a storefront bookstore and read a book with real pages you could turn and fold the corners on (even though Jesus would never dog ear the corner of a page in a book. Never ever.) I’ve changed my tune since then, but to this day I miss Borders Bookstore. I still have the Borders Rewards key FOB on my key ring, and my Goodman (who I’ve told you about before) actually surprised me by taking us to the Borders the week they were closing, and had me pick out two Borders-brand chairs and purchased them for me. “You can still write at the kitchen table you started at and the chair you finished in.” I know getting sentimental over a bookstore chair is silly. But I never have minded much that I'm silly.

So as summer is ending and I’m getting back to work, I’m glad to be sitting here at this new place, knowing that later I’ll go home and sit at my kitchen table in my Borders-brand chair, and from these perfect places I’ll keep telling the stories of those friends that keep us company in all the places, especially the not-so-perfect ones.

From under the kitchen table,

clh