The Artist's Way: Week 3 Assignments

This is one of the assignments from week three of Julia Cameron’s renowed 12-week course “The Artist’s Way.” I was originally going to start at week 1 when it came to sharing these, but I decided to keep the first two to myself as I got acclimated and explored my feelings and memories. As I mentioned, this is only one assignment— not all of them. Some of them are still just for me only. This is partly to experiment with being a little more personal and intimate, and partly to hold myself accountable as I work my way through this project. Feel free to also participate in this little prompt— I found it quite fun and rewarding to take a little trip backwards, rewarded with warm nostalgia. I would never go back— but I do like to visit.

Describe your childhood room. If you wish, you may sketch this room. What was your favourite thing about it? What’s your favourite thing about your room right now? Nothing? Well— get something you like in there— maybe something from that childhood room.

I moved around a lot as a child, but the room that sticks out was my teenage bedroom, a green and yellow monstrosity covered with posters of band members ripped from magazines. I collected copies of Alternative Press like my life depended on it, and filled an entire wall with old records I had brought back from Russia— my uncle’s old collection.

I would frequently change the decorations in this room— or, rather, what my teenage self thought of as decorations. One time, I covered half of a wall with paint chips taken from the local home hardware store. I loved this room— despite it not filling all of my teenage fantasies, it filled as many as it could. It was crucial to my inner self to have a canvas of walls that I could play around with as a form of self-expression. For a while, all of the band posters were removed and replaced with huge maps gleaned from my National Geographic subscription at the time— maps of Antarctica, a map of South America (Brazil calls to me), Africa. I wanted to see the world. I still do… perhaps I should put a map up again, to remind myself, to keep manifesting.

My favourite thing in my room was a silver, clearly dated stereo system I bought for myself— one of the first things I ever did. It was a huge, plastic monstrosity— chunky, puffy, cartoony in the way that all early 2000s technology was, with two enormous speakers and a central console/control centre. It got FM radio (oh wow, those were the days), had a CD drive (perfect for all the Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson CDs I had), two cassette decks (for waiting for my favourite song to come on the radio so I could record it, and then duplicate the cassette to give one to my best friends). It had the prize spot front and centre in my room— when I woke up and turned my head, it was the first thing I would see. I used it religiously every day. Eventually, as a gift, my father bought me an upgraded system— a sleek, black, SONY set with two narrow speakers and a flat control centre. Gone were the two cassette decks I had learned to rely on— instead, they were replaced by an iPod port. In 2021, this system is dated, too— the iPod port is for the first generation of those, with the wide plug for the wide port. A current model could not, and would not fit. When I moved out of my parents’ house, I took this system with me, and brought it to three different apartments. Most recently, when we wanted to use it, we would connect our phones via an aux cord, leaving the old iPod port on the top to gather dust as it remained unused.

My new room in Korea is small— just the right size for me. I have a small wardobe that holds my few outfits, my socks, and my underwear. I have a small nightstand with three drawers. I have a small tapestry showing what could be seen as either a sunset or a sunrise. Clean, white, sheets. I want another set. Four pillows— still probably going to get another one, as I am the type of person who prefers odd numbers. Several plants— one of them, a pathos, sadly yellowing and dying. I had to move a lot of my plants into my bedroom because it was the place getting most of the light. Each morning I wake up in the dark, and imagine them sleeping too. I have seen the leaves slowly move and thicken, new buds show up. It’s a thrill. My favourite thing? The size. The simplicity. A few decorations, mostly plants. A tall, white lamp. I don’t like ceiling lights all that much most of the time, preferring the warm glow of something smaller, sometimes even a candle.

I love my little bedroom, my little apartment. It is in looking at this small room with few things that reminds me that I have everything I need. All my clothes in a small wardrobe, a lovely bunch of plants, a few rings and necklaces for bejewelling the daily outfit. I love the light coming in all day, the big, wide window. While my teenage room had no empty wall space, my adult, nearly-30 bedroom has loads of it. In the living room/kitchen (Korean apartments are small, after all), I have a couple of tapestries, my Big Calendar that I swear by, a tambourine I hung up on the wall, some other vertical decor, but even this collection is minimal compared to what my homes used to look like. Plants, mostly. Plants and natural materials.

Having moved around a bunch, over time, I’ve found it easier to keep things simple, and now, as I move into a new stage in my life, I want things less than ever. I find pleasure in a mostly plain wall, with just one or two pieces to catch the eye. I love the newfound calm atmosphere I’ve cultivated. With less clutter, less things, I can catch a breath inside.

Because I have so little space, I have less desire to fill it. I want my apartment, my room to feel spacious— even if it isn’t actually— and clutter will only make it feel smaller. While in the past, I think I was a bit of a maximalist, these days I am only thinking about how easy things will be to transport, get rid of, or leave behind. I wouldn’t call myself a minimalist— I am just trying to minimize.

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