An Ode to Turtlenecks, Oat Milk Lattes and all the Workspaces I Loved Before.

As a person who romanticises their life constantly, creating a ~vibe~ is incredibly important to me, essential in fact! I am fully that person who forced themselves to like coffee at around 14 because I yearned to be that girl in a mustard yellow turtleneck, reading a classic novel while sipping on a latte, looking mysterious in the corner of the Bold Street Café Nero. The same goes for my workspace! I have always done my very best to create a workspace that not only makes me feel comfortable, but like I am the main character in a film about a studious young writer.

Growing up I didn’t really have the means to create my ultimate bedroom, I was always quietly jealous of the girls in my year whose parents would surprise them with room makeovers, returning home from school to see their space clad in beautiful new wallpaper. The walls of my terraced house were damp and the posters and drawings I stuck up to create my vision would slowly peel. The Christmas lights glowing rainbow were never quite the soft fairy lit boudoir I had in mind, but what was important was that I was committed to making a space for myself. When I was 15, I got my own room for the first time, a room equipped with a bunk bed housing a desk underneath! Best believe this bed became an island of my own. I filled the desk with CDs, books, stationary, and covered the wood in photos and stickers and anything that made it feel my own. I had begun to form a world for myself. I am a productive person by nature, and so every day I would spend hours writing away at this desk, drawing, making copious lists, feeling fully submerged in the quiet joy of stationary and ticking off every box on a long to-do list. I discovered that the key to fully convincing yourself that you are living inside of a studyspo post on Tumblr is ensuring you have the perfect soundtrack. When it’s raining outside, and you’re wrapped up sipping a cup of tea, listening to the sweet sound of your own perfectly curated ‘autumn’ playlist, it’s difficult to not find yourself in the throes of creativity.

Six years later and a lot has changed for me, especially in terms of my workspace. While I am still very much obsessed with turtlenecks and writing lists, I have found myself living in the suburbs of Stockport thanks to the incredible generosity and support of my partner and his family. Throughout lockdown I spent nearly each and every day in my partners childhood bedroom, a space which has now become ours as the bookshelves are lined with a mix of our possessions, our artwork up on every wall. The spot in which I spend most of my time is the desk in the window, a desk which my partner actually built for me when we first got together three years ago (I know I am one VERY lucky fella). The window looks out onto his family’s garden, a beautiful sight which I don’t think I’ll ever get used to. There is a quote by Michaela Coel which gives name to this wonderment, I feel I could’ve written these words myself;

“I’ve never had a garden. We never grew up like that. I don’t particularly mind, but I think there is something in growing up in concrete and not understanding putting fingers in soil, growing things, foundation. My family has always rented our whole lives. You’re always on fragile ground because it’s not yours. It gives you drive, an ambition, because nothing is certain. That is a resilience no person with stability can replicate.”

I feel every sentence in my bones, I honestly think this is the cause of my endless urge to be productive.

At 21 when I look out to the endless blue of Stockport skies and a garden down below, I feel full to the brim with gratitude and disbelief that I have this space to exist in. That I have the privilege of being accompanied by the sight of a sweet summer breeze settling over the grass to keep me company while I draw. This gratitude finds its way into all that I create. My work is full of romanticism, full of nostalgia and reflection, full of wonder and gratitude. I sit at this desk, dressed in a mustard yellow turtleneck, sipping my coffee while illustrating a book I adore, each day realising the vision I had for myself, for my life, at 14.