A Room of One's Own

Believe it or not, the tiny room pictured above is one of the more exciting developments from our time in Vermont. It's a studio, and it is all mine.

We had a bit of a scramble getting from the town we were living in to Montpelier. We had chosen a town in which to sublet in Vermont thinking that we wanted to either live there or in Burlington. As it turns out, we fell in love with Montpelier, and then, amazingly, I got a job there. Awesome, right? Except for the fact that it is really hard to find apartments here, especially pet-friendly ones, and our sublet was about to run out. We literally saw a place on Tuesday, signed a lease on Wednesday, and moved in on Friday right before our sublet expired on Saturday. We were so happy to have somewhere to live that we tried not to focus on the fact that the place we found was very, very small. 

And it is very, very small. It is a glorified studio apartment, though since it has two rooms and a bathroom, it was advertised as a one-bedroom. We are making it work, but it was very hard at first. It got easier when the Husband found himself studio space. It was actually his idea that I get studio space as well. My loom and yarn are over there, as well as sewing supplies. 

The theory is that I'm going to give the whole weaving thing an actual go, in a space where I won't have to fold up the loom or shove it in the corner every night. The theory is that I'll be a weaver, and maybe actually sell the things I weave, and maybe eventually even make a noticeable portion of my income from it. 

When Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of one's own, she was talking about bringing legitimacy to one's work. The flip side of legitimacy is a sense of responsibility and the fact that it's time to either do the thing you've been talking about or shut up about it. Frankly, it's daunting. We'll see whether in a few months I'm doing the thing or shutting up. I really hope it's the former.

It Happens

The husband and I have settled, finally, in the fine city of Montpelier. We are both gainfully employed. I am not, any longer, a librarian. I am working at a preschool as a Toddler Teacher. In practice, this means I am the assistant teacher under a very cool head teacher in a room full of children aged 12-18 months. 

There are things I like very much about my new career. There are things I miss very much about my old one. Overall, though, I think there is one thing that I can point to as the main difference between the two, and that thing is poop. 

Oh, there was poop at the library, but for me at least, it was mostly in the abstract. I conducted storytimes for many diapered children, and sometimes I'd smell the telltale stink of a poopy diaper, but it was never my problem. Libraries are renowned for providing public bathrooms to any and all, including the type of unsavory character who would spread their solid waste on the walls, but when it happened at my library, I was already home for the day. 

These days, I am pretty much the Poop Queen. At frequent intervals, either me or my co-teacher will say, "I smell poop," and then we will begin the strange ritual of diaper-poking and bottom-smelling until one of us finds the culprit. Often there is more than one culprit, in part because these children eat most of their meals at the same time and are thus on very similar schedules in all parts of their lives. 

All of this was brought home to me in the past week, as a minor stomach bug swept the classroom. As illnesses go, it was nothing major. The afflicted children remained in good spirits and kept their food down. They just had wicked cases of diarrhea. I talked in great detail to mothers and fathers about the contents of their children's diapers, both during and after each child struck ill. In one case, within minutes of meeting a child's aunt, I was talking about his bowel movements to her. 

This is definitely not what I imagined for myself originally, but I'm enjoying it very much. In all honesty, diaper changing is one of my favorite daily tasks, because it is usually nice one-on-one time with each child that is hard to get otherwise in a busy room. Still, though, as I stand and talk earnestly about the texture of a poop, sometimes I would like to hit pause and enjoy a nice long Beavis laugh. So here, in my private space, I have but one thing to say to you: "Poop. Uh huh huh huh."

Thank you. I needed that.