‘A Room of One’s Own’

During the end of year holidays in January we switched round furniture and beds in our three and a half room appartment. We have high ceilings which give an illusion of space but only 84m of floorspace. How to accommodate everyone’s various needs in their own private space; starting with our daughters, one ado needs a place where no-one can come in, her little sister a big table to spread out the collection of miniature dolls or ‘pollies’ she talks to for hours on end, their father relaxes by reading online newspapers or listening to hours of Persian music online; their mother wants an uninterrupted space to daydream – not to mention work at writing. After a week of thinking over various configurations of furniture and what-will-happen-when-we-have-houseguests (which happens fairly often since we host family from abroad) /sleepovers (a vital necessity in an ado’s social calender) we managed to create; a duplex for the elder daughter in half a backroom, a study for me behind closed double doors that separate off the bookshelf corner in the living room, a computer corner/ futon flop down area behind by wooden Indian screens - for listening to music and doing nothing in the second biggest room which will also function as a guest room. So far everyone is happy, gets to listen to the sort of music they like without BEING INTERRUPTED, and in my case even start writing posts to ‘Dalloway’s Daughters’.
Circumstances seem to collude in pointing to the obvious place to start for this blog is by talking about ‘A Room of One’s Own’ the essay which Woolf wrote in 1929 for a talk addressed to undergraduates on the opening of the first women’s colleges of Newnham and Girton at Cambridge. I unearthed my copy of this essay - the same yellowing edition I had read years ago as a student and sat up reading it one night after everyone had gone to sleep.