I am accompanied by the view from my window, which overlooks the street. It is filled with tables of people commiserating, laughing and arguing, as well as people passing by, either calmly or hurriedly. I sit at my large wooden table, which is right next to the window. In front of me is the fireplace, which brings peace to people with its warmth and crackling. The singing of birds and the soft sound of a piano playing in the background join me. The city whispers stories to me. I am surrounded by antique stuff that I collected over time. They carry memories of completely different lives with them, through their textures and smells. My cat is constantly sleeping on my lap, providing me with a peaceful and calm presence, as well as warmth.

Of course, I don’t have any of these things! The description of my real place is more like as below…

My view
In order to read and write without time restrictions and feel alive again, I had to leave my job. This also meant that my family and I had to leave our three-floor, four-room rental home. Shortly before I resigned, we bought a two-bedroom house in a quiet neighbourhood, taking out a 30-year mortgage.

The average age in our neighbourhood is around 75, so our effect on lowering the average is minimal. As a result, I see people returning from the market, walking calmly and slowly, or gently watering their flowers, rather than exciting city rush on streets.

However, the joy of our postman, who sings as he delivers our letters here every day; the hope inspired by our 86-year-old neighbour, who cycles around the neighbourhood twice a day, rain or shine, at 9.30am and 3.30pm; the friendship shared by our downstairs neighbours, who help us with everything; and the romance of the elderly couple, who walk arm in arm every day, are much more valuable to me than anything else.

My writing desk

There are several tables in our house, but unfortunately, none of them belong to me. I use each of them intermittently, at appropriate intervals. For example, as my partner holds business meetings at the dining table in the living room from morning until evening, and the family watches TV there afterwards, I can use this table between 07:00 and 10:00 at weekends when everyone is asleep.

We have another table in our small summerhouse in the garden, but I can only use it seasonally. In the cold months, it is unavailable to use, but in warmer months, it is still hardly used, this time because of the spiders. By “spiders”, I don’t mean small ones, but big ones with long legs. I don’t think it’s right to kill animals, so I sit at the end of the chair and wait for them to leave.

During the day, when the school is open, I usually write at my daughter’s desk. After cleaning up the milk spilled from her morning cereal and the water and paint spilled from her evening project, I squeeze into the two square metres of cleared space. With posters about dance, music and sports in front of me and old toys underfoot that she couldn’t bear to throw away, this desk is one of the places where I spend most of my time. Since my daughter doesn’t want to move it next to the window, I end up looking at the wall all day!

Apart from here, the kitchen counter is another place where I spend a lot of time with my notebook. I write a lot of pieces while stirring food on the hob, loading the dishwasher, or sometimes just standing there, because I’m not disturbed here. To be honest, I don’t feel tormented here; I love this place. Sometimes it’s even enjoyable to write with a glass of wine and some cheese cut into irregular shapes and placed on the bread rack.

My writing music

When I write at the table (the available one!), I usually listen to piano, acoustic guitar or jazz melodies on YouTube. If I’m in the kitchen, I’m accompanied by the upbeat songs of Radio Heart. Sometimes, while I’m writing, I can hear my neighbour downstairs singing or telling her children the house rules in a high-pitched voice. Of course, there is always the sound of birdsong. Their different tones create a natural melody that fills our house through the open windows. I would like to thank all the birds that visit our neighbourhood every day and help me with important life decisions!

My Antiques

Actually, I don’t have an antiques hobby. However, every corner of our house contains items that have been worn down by time, and have become antiques in their own right. We live with all of these items, not because they have memories attached to them or are precious, but because we are a lazy family. For example, our printer, which doesn’t work properly (but not dead, it makes noise at night, just can’t print!), our baskets that were left around because I didn’t know what to put in them, our half-built Lego sets that we finished but lost parts of over time, our picture frames that turned yellow from white even though they were never opened, and our wine corks that were aimlessly collected in bags and never used. We also have retirement items, such as dozens of candle holders that we can’t throw away.

We’ve moved house seven times in eight years (long story!), and we’ve carried all these items with us in boxes throughout all our moves. That’s why they deserve to be our real antiques; perhaps they carry our past with them.

Our cat

Yes, we have a cat. She used to be our neighbour’s cat, but then she suddenly chose to take refuge in our house and started living with us. It’s a long story — I think it deserves to be told in more detail another time. Her name is Coco Guinness. She takes her name from the colour of a pint of Guinness, which is exactly the same colour as her fur. However, my daughter thought it strange to give a cat a name associated with beer, so she gave her a different name too. Sometimes, when she’s playing and dancing, we also call her Coco Chanel. Our neighbour was looking after her outside. Coco Guinness is an independent, free-spirited cat, and despite her young age, she is also wise. She loves sleeping on my keyboard when I’m trying to write! I love her; she loves my computer — and food!

**

Human memory is strange; it remembers all the unnecessary things as if they happened yesterday. But sometimes, it could erase the most important and beautiful memories with Shift+Del, and then you can’t find them in your mind.

In the past, I always dreamed of writing in environments like the one I described at the beginning of this post. Maybe they will come true one day.
But, today, in the present moment, I want to write about and immortalise the places I live in. If my memory erases them one night years from now while I’m asleep, at least they can stay here.