When I was in elementary school, I asked for desk for my birthday. It was something my cousin had started and to which my grandfather responded by building on with his hands. I received the same kind of desk for my birthday that my cousin had.
I was thrilled to have my own space and my own place to store my desk supplies (yes I did actually ask only for desk supplies one Christmas and the item I was most excited about was the desk calendar, but that’s for another time) and a place to line up my journals and books so that they were within easy reach.
After graduation, I swung by my parents house and picked up the desk that has been mine for years and years. I looked under the desk where the note from my grandparents was written in permanent marker and I loaded it into the back of my Subaru. Willie and Waylon watched the desk come into the house, get reassembled and find it’s place in MH’s room. I can’t wait for her to see it this weekend, not just because it fits perfectly into the nook in her room, but because it inspired me to write. Maybe those shelves will hold Legos from here on out of maybe they will hold soccer trophies or critter cages and not journals and books like it did when I was young, but I’m just glad she has a space and place of her own now.
It can’t be easy for her as she travels back and forth, so maybe this will give her some grounding. I know my Bebop would love that for her and would love my telling her the story of that desk because he always loved a good story.