Morning Pages in action
A moment of synchronicity.
Here’s a wee story about something lovely that happened when I moved into my new studio. If you’ve read my blog post ‘Why do Morning Pages’ you’ll know that daily free-writing can often lead to moments of synchronicity.
Here’s one of them.
Picture the scene. It’s a warm sunny morning at the tail end of September. I collect the keys to my new studio in The Hidden Lane (quirky artists’ community of multi-coloured buildings down a back street in hipsterville Finnieston) and head over to check it out.
I climb the rickety wooden stairs, the door’s ajar so I go straight in and sit for a while. It’s good to take some time to get to know the space—sense the quality of light, listen to the sparrows as they come and go to their nest in the climbers around the window, imagine where I’ll put my desk, how it will feel to have my own creative space.
I grin from ear to ear—so happy to be there. This is the realisation of a childhood dream.
Scene 2. It’s later that evening. It’s dark. And cold. There may even be some drizzle in the air. I’m back at The Hidden Lane with my husband Jonathan and a car laden with art materials, a lamp, a high stool, my Granny’s vintage armchair (cos all artists’ studios should have a battered old chair) and the makings of a very large desk: two Ikea trestles and a big grey table-top.
I’d had my heart set on a white desk but they didn’t have a white top one in stock. I was disappointed but there was no other choice—so grey it is.
We start to unload and carry as much as we can up the rickety stairs. “Just wait till you see it. You’re going to love it!” I put the key in the door and …
Nothing.
It won’t bloody turn. And no amount of brute force or delicate safe-cracker-style movements makes the slightest bit of difference. Defeated we begin the whole process in reverse. Lug everything back down the stairs and into the car. Drive home. Lug it all back up the stairs and into the flat.
Talk about an anti-climax.
But when something like that happens I always think there must be some sort of unexpected benefit that will come from it. I wondered what that might be. Maybe it was actually a good thing that we couldn’t get into the studio that evening as it would be so much better for Jonathan to see it in the daylight with the sun streaming in the windows and the view over the rooftops and the sparrows and the … well let’s just say “If Disney made art studios …”.
Scene 3. It’s the next morning. I’m back again at The Hidden Lane with the laden car. Jonathan’s not with me. He has a proper job so is at home banging away at his keyboard. The manager is deeply apologetic about the mix-up with the keys and offers to help me unload the car.
She’s just carried the huge table-top up the stairs when I notice something I hadn’t noticed the night before. Propped up against the wall, and (according to the manager) there for the taking, is an Ikea table-top in almost perfect condition!
It’s exactly the same as the grey one I bought - but it’s WHITE! The grey one is still in its packaging so back into the car it goes and within a couple of hours I’m all set up in my studio with the lovely white desk I’d dreamed of.
Had we been able to get into the studio the night before by the time I noticed the white table-top it would have been too late—the grey one would have already been unwrapped.
And if the door hadn’t been left ajar or if I hadn’t been so giddy with the excitement of having a studio and thought to check that the keys actually worked … I’d also have ended up with a grey desk.
But we couldn’t— and it was—and I didn’t—so a white desk it is!
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