A Lanai of One’s Own
Settling in for creative work on Sanibel Island
It doesn’t take much to make me feel at home in a new place. All I need is decent Internet service, a coffee maker, a window with something natural to look at, and a horizontal surface for my gear.
Here on Sanibel, the horizontal surface arrived yesterday.
Our amazingly helpful Dream Vacation Rentals agent, Ryan, asked me to pick out a desk at Amazon so he could buy it and have it shipped to me. I found a Eureka 31.5" computer desk for $50.99, and I assembled it last night. It has a smooth, faux-maple particleboard top with a round opening for cables. It’s awesome.
The last remaining task was to give my room a name.
In Cambridge, Mass., I call my workspace the Lab. I picked out a boy’s dream of wallpaper with fanciful gears and robots. It clashes nicely with the Oriental rug and with a handsome painting my mother did of my college dorm, Wigglesworth Hall. The Lab is the only room in our house that doesn’t make interior-decorator sense, which is Darlene’s expertise.
Here in Florida last night, my space was all set up except for the office chair Ryan ordered that will be here in a few more days. All it needed was a name.
I’ve enjoyed how everyone in these parts calls a screened porch a lanai. It’s a cool name, which makes me think of Hawaii. And so…
My creative space here on Sanibel is hereby designated the Lenai.
When Darlene and I move around during the year, there is always a chance to reconfigure my inner landscape. She has for years maintained that I am a nicer person in Denver than I am in New England. It may relate to her preference for the West, which is where she grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota. But I know what she means. Something inside shifts when we migrate through time zones or latitudes.
In the first week of our planned four-month stay in Florida, I don’t know yet what sort of persona will emerge on this smile of an island known as the shell capital of the nation.
But I do know where much of the emergence will take place:
Right here in the Lenai.
