I Changed Desks

I changed desks!

It’s a big deal.

Since 1949, and probably years before that, the old maple desk had been my father’s. It’s a lovely desk. It has one deep- and two shallower drawers on one side, a wide one in the middle, and two-shelves for books on the other side. In an old family album, there’s a photo of it, circa 1949, next to one of the roof supports in the living room of the John Lautner home in which I grew up. 

Three years after my father left, I claimed his desk and painted it a lovely shade of avocado green with gold trim in all the little crevices carved on the maple front.  I also painted the wooden drawer-pulls gold. At the same time, my thirteen year old taste dictated that I paint the high-boy mahogany dresser to match. What a gaudy set! But I did it all by myself. For permission to do something so abominable, I’m thankful to my mother. It WAS empowering. It DID help me to have confidence in my ability to tackle and complete a project - TWO projects. Well, three... she also let me paint my bedroom apricot and cocoa brown. Maybe she was into cheap labor, but in truth, I think she had a keen sense of adventure and figured it wasn’t life threatening and it might be life enhancing to let me paint my own room and furniture. She was correct.

I recall the next challenge that arose the summer before I turned sixteen. Mom and my step dad, Papa Leo, allowed me help build a cinder-block wall with re-bar, and to pick-out and put-in the neon-ORANGE wall paper and tasteful white linoleum floor tiles for the new bathroom they built so I could have my own suite at the other end of the house. They wanted privacy, and by then, little brother Steve was nearly two years old and required the only other bedroom.

So, Abe Osheroff, a barrel-chested veteran of the Lincoln Brigade, who helped topple Franco’s reign in Spain, served as contractor to our friend Arthur Silver’s architectural renderings for an add-on to this Lautner gem. What were they thinking? Who in his right mind would amend an original Lautner in any way?

I feel guilty for being the impetus for my folks to even consider such blasphemy.

Back to the desk change...

My older brother Mel helped MOVE that maple desk six times within a year and a half,  when I was eighteen to twenty, and uncertain  about who I was and where I wanted to live and with whom and what I wanted to do with my life. That desk served as dining room table in one configuration; side board in a dining room with another roommate, and an actual desk in a few apartments.

When I married, the desk came with. Before giving birth to our first daughter in October 1976, I decided to gift my beloved with a “new” maple desk. I stripped the God-awful green and gold paint, sanded it smooth as a baby’s bottom, and put on several coats of varnish. Except for the wee bit of green and gold in those pesky crevices, you can’t tell it was ever re-imagined (defaced) by a thirteen year old.

At some point, I think when we moved to this current home, Mark got a built-in desk and I had the old maple wonder back. It has served us well.

Only after years of healing my childhood wounds, and after I began to write more regularly and seriously, did I begin to feel the desk might be haunted. I began to dream of using something other than my father’s desk for my writing. It became clear, in a number of therapy sessions, that it might be a good idea to find my own desk. I went so far as to peruse second hand shops and search on-line for stand-up configured desks. The former were too cheesy; the latter too expensive. 

Last Thursday night, alone in the house, I was writing at the ol’ maple desk and listening to the radio, which sits atop a large roll-top desk, which we purchased when we moved into this house. Both desks ended up in the room which I now call my office. It used to be a bedroom for our younger daughter. I use the roll top for storage. It's too far from the computer plugs to be a writing desk.

From across the room, I kept looking at the radio on top of the roll-top and then looking quizzically and maybe a little disdainfully at the ol’ maple. At 9:30 pm, I decided to try to swap them. I figured that if I could take the weighty contents of the drawers out of each, I could move both pieces. It proved to be more difficult and time-intensive than I’d imagined. Eventually, the five-and-a-half foot by nine foot rug had to be turned, to go lengthwise across the room - opposite to its original orientation, but the rug also allowed me to slide things around without gouging the wood floor.

Many women I know seem quite self-reliant and creative when it comes to moving heavy furniture. Several of my gal-pals know that it’s easier to complete a creative urge without editorial commentary or “help” from a well-meaning, but design-challenged guy.

Sometimes, it’s easier just to DO it than to explain it... especially if the final vision is a work in progress.

When my honey returned from camp Friday night, I showed him my new office arrangement. “Why didn’t you ask for help?” he asked with a mixture of disbelief, hurt and protectiveness of my “weaker-sex” physiology. Bless his heart and strength, I know both are in the right place. Now my desks are too, and I didn’t have to compromise his back or patience as I figured out just how everything should go.

By one O’clock Friday morning, it was good enough - dusted, vacuumed, books in place, good to go! By Sunday night, it was all set for the trial run... TA DA... first blog post from MY desk - not my dad’s!

Our older daughter used her Gran’pa Howard’s desk Sunday night, in its new position, to be close to the wi-fi connection in my office. She never met my dad and has no cootie baggage about him that I know of. 

Who knows where the ol’ maple desk will end up? I expect it will be purified of any negativity and be useful to someone in the family for years to come. Maybe the glorious four-ish granddaughter, who lights up our hearts with joy, will need a desk one day. I wonder how it will look painted pink.