Talking with a friend over IM, I asked her about the homeschooling she’s doing with her children, each of whom is being taught at home for vastly different reasons. She’s ten years younger than I am, I think, and an amazing parent – I wonder when she finds time to breathe. I am amazed that she finds time to write.

She mentioned the concept of unschooling, and that phrase lingered in my mind. I am not unschooled, but a product of public schools, blessed to have encountered marvelous, caring teachers, and offered amazing opportunities.

But for the last year, I have been un-officed.

I mean, think about it. An office is a place with reception desks and cubicles, carpet in varying shades that are all related to institutional green and mortgage banker blue. and hermetically sealed windows, when there are windows at all.

I work from home. Lately, my daytime writing has been taking place at my grandmother’s antique rolltop desk with the sunflower drawer pulls, and the pretty silver and blue lamp on the top has been casting soft pink light upon my pink-sheathed macbook, and my nighttime writing has been on my sexy black Vaio, while I’m surrounded by pillows. I have a room of my own upstairs, but it’s not speaking to me write now. I think it’s mad at me, because I dubbed it a studio several months ago, then promptly reverted to calling it an office.

Or maybe it’s just that the summer sun makes the upstairs too hot, and I like being able to walk to the back yard between paragraphs, without having to climb up and down the stairs.

Being un-officed doesn’t mean I’m not working.
It just means my workday has a flow that is difficult to define.