A Room of One's Own

After years of yearning, a homeowner gets her wish. But that's not the end of the story.

In her final novel, Unless,the late Canadian writer Carol Shields called "unless" the worry word of the English language. "Everything depends on its breathy presence," she said. Unless you're lucky, unless you're healthy, unless you're loved and fed, "you go down in the darkness, down to despair."

I suppose everyone has his or her version of worry words, those potent phrases you barely notice but are always there, tempering reality, such as "when you're bigger" or "when the economy improves." My worry words are "if only." I am a chronic, accursed if only-er. If only I had more time, my house would be neater, my meals would be better, my temper less likely to snap.

And then there is the most frequently invoked "if only" of all, the one that gets said in exasperation at night when I'm craving quiet, or on weekends when the house foot traffic is heavy. If only I had a room of my own.

Virginia Woolf wrote that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction," and for a long time I've known that if I couldn't have a patron, a room of my own would do nicely. It would be the antidote to my domestic frustrations, "the solution to my life," as Alice Munro writes in "The Office," a short story about a woman who craves a personal space. It is yet another literary reference backing up my theory that room deficit is a chronic female frustration. ("It was really the sound of the word `office' that I liked, its sound of dignity and peace," Munro writes. "And purposefulness and importance.")

Amen. With a room of my own, I'd be calmer. I'd be more productive. There wouldn't be disruptions in my life, my projects would get finished, and who knows what inspired acts of creativity would emerge from behind that door? My children (the fantasy continues) would see the closed door and respect it. Mother is busy right now, they'd say to themselves, and turn to their father for lunch money or lost things.

One of the caveats of motherhood is that you forfeit your right to private space. Once the kids come, you leave the bathroom door open. You leave the bedroom door open. For that matter, your whole life turns into an open book, subjected to scrutiny from the offspring, accusatory chants of "Why do you do it this way?" or "You're always telling me one thing but doing something else."

Mothers may not have private lives, at least not without effort, guilt, and secrecy, and the idea of having private space is orders of magnitude more weird. Imagine "a mother shutting her door, and the children knowing she is behind it; why, the very thought of it is outrageous to them," writes Munro, who was known to have composed her fiction in her bedroom, snatching moments between children and chores. "A woman who sits staring into space, into a country that is not her husband's or her children's, is likewise known to be an offense against nature."

This summer, I bought a new house and committed that particular offense against nature. It was a larger house, and so after I designated everyone else's room (you get the great big one, you get the nice sunny one), there was one room left unclaimed. It's small, but it has a window and a door, and space for a computer and a desk, and even enough room for a bed, so it can double as a guest room and appease my guilt about owning it.

Now here I am, in my own room, with the door closed. It is so quiet and intimidating. These walls not only have ears, they seem to have eyes. "Do something constructive," the room seems to be saying. "You have no more excuses." But I can't. I imagine the dialogue on the other side of the door. What's wrong with her? they might be saying. The toe-tapping. The eye-rolling.

It's a whole new chapter, here in my room. The problem is, I can't imagine the part that comes next. It's a whole new chapter, here in my room. The problem is, I can't imagine the part that comes next.