Emmy Nordstrom Higdon’s Writing Space
Not long after my partner and I moved into our home, we had a contractor come over to help address one of the myriad logistical issues that arise when you’re newly nesting. We have set up our house with two bedrooms: the master upstairs, which my partner and I regularly share, and a basement bedroom, which I abscond to when night owl tendencies get the best of me. In the interest of both of us feeling a sense of ownership of space, my partner filled the master with all of zir comfort objects, and I took over the basement.
In what one might refer to as a semblance of decorating, I covered the bed in hand-sewn quilts, filled shelves with leafy plants, piled books from floor to ceiling, and half-painted the walls in a shade called Lemonade (before running out of paint). When the contractor came upon my basement lair, he turned to my partner and said, “Huh. Your husband’s bedroom looks a lot like my teenaged daughter’s,” unintentionally offering the most comical and accurate description of my writing space that I’ve encountered to date.
Sometimes, I wonder what the inside of my mind would look like to an outsider. I most often picture it like one of the bulletin boards that I used to keep on the walls of my high school bedroom. Although they masqueraded as practical, displaying my colour-coded to-do lists and monthly overstuffed calendars, they were really part scrapbook, part vision board. I pierced the thin cork board with one- and two-inch buttons that I received at events, hung branded lanyards off the thumbtacks, filled negative space with printed photos, used name tags, photocopied zines, horse show ribbons, classroom doodles, movie tickets, magazine clippings – the ephemera of a small city, teenage life in the early 00s.
I’m not sure if my personal aesthetic has evolved since then, and perhaps that impacts my writing more than I recognize consciously. It certainly mimics my writing process, which is hardly ever linear, despite my attempts at outlines, and my meticulous spreadsheets, so diligently maintained with upcoming deadlines and submission periods.
Despite being a basement, my writing space/bedroom/office/sewing room is bright and welcoming, with its many windows to the outside, lamps mounted on every surface, and an enormous rug of many colours that seems as though it may have been dyed by simply soaking its fibres in watercolours. I spend most of my time snug in a corner of an old love seat, something I’m sure that my body will punish me for later in life, with my sticker-covered laptop perched on a sturdy solid wood coffee table that’s pulled close enough to reach. Mallsoft, the only music that my overly-emotional heart can tolerate, occasionally seeps from its built-in speakers.
I spend more hours there than I’d readily admit, covered in a crocheted afghan rescued from a thrift store many years ago, or the threadbare sun-and-moon themed comforter that my grandmother gave to me as a gift when I was in middle school. When I reluctantly consent to a video call, I line up some of my stuffed animals along the back of the sofa in a neat row – a pocket-sized capybara, a fantastical dragon (modelled after the fruit), a soft kākāpo parrot from a conservation group, Riffin from the Humblewood D&D campaign setting.
The space isn’t entirely mine, and I would be remiss not to credit my coauthors and roommates. Whisper and Willow are two formerly feral Forest Cat mixes, and the basement is probably more theirs than mine. Whisper is a lovable marshmallow of a creature who does his very best to ensure that I don’t ever work too hard, often by planting his nearly 20 lb body, purring, on mine. His littermate, Willow, is reluctant to be perceived at times, even now at age seven. She still holds more than a little of the forest in her demeanour, though she’s the softest creature I’ve ever personally experienced touching. When objects that I need have gone missing, I can almost always count on finding them having been spirited away to a nest under my bed that Willow has made.
Conventional wisdom dictates that where you write impacts what you write, and a quick Pinterest search on writing space inspiration will return a collage of minimalist, private oases of calm in shades of beige – ergonomic chairs, multiple monitors, inspirational quotes, personalized bookshelves. These are places where I’d be afraid that my coffee mugs would leave telltale rings on the desktop – environments where I’d be afraid to mar the blank page with the ink splashes of my crude first drafts. I cringe to imagine what the bookstagrammers would say in response to the modest collection of Sylvanian Families that clutter my table, and the myriad cat toys that litter my floor – which could always use more vacuuming.
Emmy Nordstrom Higdon (they/them) holds a PhD in social work and works as a literary agent. They grew up in Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland), and live on the Haldimand Tract in Kitchener, ON, with their partner, two cats, a Dalmatian, and many plants. They keep busy with vegan cooking, textile crafts, wholesome games, too much reality TV, and reading. They probably follow your pets on Instagram.
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