I am actually decorating my living room – not a thing I’ve ever done before. I’ve always lived as if in a furniture shop, with lovely 2nd hand pieces lining every wall, things I was given or found on the street or bought on the cheap when I needed more stuff in which to stuff more stuff.
First I did a clear-out – what they now call de-cluttering – giving away many of those old pieces, even lovely art deco oak furniture (on left) that I brought with me from England but which have always been too imposing for my tiny apartment. I dispersed all my precious knick-knacks, picked up from places I traveled, or presents from… well, I hardly remember from whom. I even gave away four or five large cartons of books.
I have always lived in clutter and chaos, leading to my practice of going elsewhere to write for weeks at a time. But as I age, and as the airlines have become so dedicated to propagating misery, I’m less enthusiastic about cat-sitting in South London or Las Vegas in order to have a beautiful calm space in which to write my books. Besides, in thinking forward now that I’m in my 70s, there is not a person in the world who wants to be responsible for disposing of my copious possessions: it’s time to get a head start.
My new living room carpeting provided the excuse to do all of this. The carpet is a gorgeous grey that matches my newish little couch. In order to have it installed, I was required to pack up every single thing from every single piece of furniture and pile it all in my bedroom so that the furniture could be easily moved around as the carpet was changed. That made it easier to eliminate the heavy wooden furniture, leaving my possessions in a gazillion cartons. I had help moving those heavy boxes from Barry and Melsen and Bren and Mags over a couple of months. And on the day the carpet was replaced, Barry heroically unplugged every item that works on electricity, marking each wire, and then re-plugged them all afterwards. This was not a job I could have easily pulled off for myself.
For months and months, I have been searching for a long white credenza with simple lines and a lighter, modern look which will provide 80+ inches of storage and be soothing to look at from my desk. But I’ve found nothing to my taste. I enlisted the help of a long-time friend Debi Levine who roams online auction sites. Still nothing. Then my friend Bren, as we sat in front of my computer searching some more, suggested that I try looking for a color instead of white.
And then I finally came across a cabinet, just 48” – but I could easily fit in two – that came in slate blue. After consulting with Bren and Sandy and Jaya and Barry and Judy and Victoria and Sue O, and after seeing it on multiple sites for twice the price, I ordered two. However, it comes in a box and needs to be assembled, a task far from my own skill sets, which tend to congregate around words – spoken and written, dance steps, and my refrigerator.
Debi, however, has golden hands. Her mother calls her The Mastermind. She agrees to come and assemble them. I change my schedule so that I will be around on Wednesday for the promised delivery – intending to put up all sorts of signs in the building’s entrance to convince the delivery people to bring them up to my apartment for a hearty tip. But to my distress, the furniture arrives while I’m out at a Dr. appointment on Tuesday. They are propped up against the building’s wall of mail-boxes in the entryway, each cardboard container twice as wide as me and a foot or two taller, each weighing 99 pounds. Other tenants are buzzing my flat in fury at being unable to access their mail. I appeal to my landlady in the office and she rustles up two of her brothers – my landlords – and they somehow carry both of them up.
Debi offers to come on the Wednesday to whip them together – hoping to finish in an over-optimistic 90 minutes. However, it turns out that each cabinet has about a dozen planks of various sizes and a huge cache of hardware. Undaunted, Debi wrestles the slate blue participants into perfect order, crawling around the floor, bending over them when they resist, standing them up, screwing them tight, and lord knows what. My friend Judy comes over to offer moral support to The Mastermind, joins us for lunch, and helps me haul out the debris.
I have a chiropractic appointment I must leave for at 4:45. Debi has been working non-stop since 10:30 am, with a quick break for my tuna salad and cranberry sauce. The doors are the last piece to be assembled and they have, for both cabinets, been the hardest 
to subdue. The clock is ticking: 4:20. 4:30. And then, at 4:40, The Mastermind shuts those doors smoothly, helps me move the two cabinets side by side, as if they were one, gathers up her enigmatic tools, and we leave together – her exhausted by hours of demanding physical labor and shrewd problem-solving, and me dazzled by the brilliance of her competence and confidence.
It has taken a village but now my living room, for the first time in my life, looks like a grown-up lives in it. Now it is time to write those books that long to come alive.
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