Making Space

I cleared off my desk this morning. Not organized, cleared. Everything went into a box on the floor, and the box went into the closet, and for the first time in months I could see the wood grain.

It’s strange how much noise objects make. A stack of mail is a list of things I haven’t done. A cable I don’t recognize is a small mystery I keep choosing not to solve. None of it is loud on its own, but together it hums.

I didn’t notice the hum until it stopped. I sat down with a cup of tea and an empty surface and felt my shoulders come down an inch. It was the same feeling as walking out of a crowded store into a parking lot at night.

The desk was a gift from my dad when I moved into my first apartment. He found it at an estate sale and refinished it in his garage over two weekends. I remember him running his hand along the edge and saying it would outlive both of us. I had covered it so completely that I forgot what it looked like.

I’ve been trying to make the same kind of room online. Fewer tabs. Fewer feeds. One place to write that doesn’t ask me to perform. If you want to see the rest of what I’m working on, it lives at stevecrosby.com, but honestly, this is the part I care about.

There’s a version of the internet I miss. Small pages made by one person. Guestbooks. Links to friends’ sites at the bottom. Nobody was counting anything. You wrote because you wanted to, and if someone found it, that was a nice surprise.

I don’t think that internet is gone. I think it’s just buried under a lot of boxes.

So here is my clear desk. A lamp, a notebook, the tea going cold. A window with the neighbor’s lemon tree in it. That’s all I need to start.

The box is still in the closet. I haven’t missed anything in it yet.