Today I’m sharing two timed writings (one 10 minutes, the other 15 minutes) that I wrote during Wild Writers on Friday, January 9, 2026. I had been thinking about this week’s blog post but didn’t feel excited about any of the topics that popped into my brain. I didn’t really decide to do this until after the meeting was over and I started scratching my head about this week’s blog post. It was then that I had the idea of sharing with you my timed writings. We listened to two poems, each of which are read twice and mined for prompts that we can use in our writing. I used the prompts, “I decided to say yes again” and “She had enormous and complicated eyes.”
Without further ado, here the two are combined into for your enjoyment:
“I decided to say yes again – I was surprised. My interior designer granddaughter had given me some tips on freshening up my house. So far, her suggestions were fairly easy fixes. New throw rugs. New kitchen towels. So I decided when she was here for a visit with my great grandson (her son) to ask her about my desk.
It was a total mess as it usually is. Books and papers everywhere, containers of pens and pencils, clips, greeting cards, cube Kleenex. So many things – including a large blank sheet of paper I scribble on that can be used to remind me to pay my therapist, remember a new word I want to look up, or a phone number I want handy.
She stepped back from the desk and was silent for quite some time. Then she asked me a question that terrified me at the same time it thrilled a part of me – “have you thought of getting a new desk?
I’m eighty years old, I thought.
My granddaughter has enormous and complicated eyes and when I said I’m eighty years old, these eyes sparkled. “TT,” she said because that’s what she called me as a toddler and continues to do, “What does that have to do with it?”
I loved her question though she didn’t exactly phrase it that way. But that’s what I heard. And there were two parts of me responding. My more practical self said – oh you are just a messy person – you need to be less rushed. More careful. There’s no sense in getting a new desk – it would be foolish at your age.
I couldn’t even remember when I had purchased this desk. Was it when I divorced my husband of thirty-three years and moved to a town home on Grand Ave? Whenever I bought it, (according to my granddaughter anyway) it was before computers were so much a part of our lives. It has cubby holes and a file drawer and a door that shelters a tower computer – is that what you call them even? I’ve stuffed the space with all my old journals – it’s the perfect size.
She continues talking to me as if I am a person – a woman – a writer – who deserves a new desk. I soak it up. I get younger. I’m happy.
IMAGE: This is the before picture. Stay tuned for the after picture.
