birds, bees, & messy desks
When Sung and I moved in together, one of the first things we ever established as part of living together is that my desk was an untouchable zone. Untouchable in that I would do my best to keep our shared spaces neat (an ongoing process, because I am unfortunately the kind of person that will not tidy things up until I am overwhelmed by just how messy I've let things gotten, and then hyper-fixate for 2 hours and not do anything else), but my desk was my safe space to fill with trinkets and get a little (or a lot) messy.
take a wild guess which one is mine
Part of me blames the messiness on the workification of my desk. I'll take the flexibility of wfh in a heartbeat over the alternative, but it doesn't prevent me from feeling resentful that precious desk real estate is occupied by things I try to forget once my laptop is closed.
But my desk, maybe everyone's desk, is deeply personal. Besides being home to all my most used things (journal(s), pens, my favorite mug, my Snoopy coaster), it's also filled with reminders of the people I love. The hand lotion my beloved friend gave me to ask me to be a bridesmaid, the many little blind boxes from or bought with friends, the pens and markers and highlighters and washi tape given on birthdays that all scream "I think of you and I know you and I love you."
It is hard to be a person who desperately wants to nest in an apartment that is never permanent. Moving frequently I have to accept that my desk changes, my wall postcards change, my year planners change, and I do too. I could trace my years of adulthood in my desks, their configurations and messes. This desk will always be the version I remember when I think of the first years of living with someone. The desk itself lives in a place that is ours, instead of just mine. It is shelter for our dog when she wants to use my extension cord as a pillow, for some reason. It has seen me make things on good days, on bad days, on days where I don't want to make anything at all.
Despite being renters, we've done a lot of nesting in our apartment, both inside and out. Between our bird feeder that is attracting exclusively one house sparrow and our rooftop garden, the place we're in feels like home. But it's also beyond these walls. It's being recognized at our community garden where I've finally gotten a plot, having a regular drink at a cafe near us, being greeted like friends at our wine store. It's recognizing our neighborhood bird calls without even seeing them, after months of Merlin and e-bird taught birding.
But back to messy desks. Sometimes my desk is a mess because I've had a long day and after work I'm too tired to form neat piles, and sometimes my desk is a mess because it's being used to do the thing I love. I can only hope that those days outweigh the rest.
tonight's messy desk, featuring my favorite bird of all time, the tufted titmouse <3
Post Script
Also a mess: my sketchbook 'organization' these days. In the past I've stuck through one sketchbook all the way start to finish as a record of what I made. Since switching to many different mediums including tactile things like fiber, paper, and ceramics, it's all out of whack. I've been choosing sketchbooks just based on pure vibes. This sketchbook in particular is a hand-bound book we took a workshop for a few months back, and is generally reserved as my "junk" sketchbook. Ironically, it has some of my favorite things lately, maybe because I'm less precious about how things look and it allows me to experiment and have more fun with drawing - especially with mediums, like oil pastels, that I'm not super confident in.