Bernadette Joolen: My Yellow Room...
Every girl needs a room of her own.
Copyright 1990 by Bernadette Joolen. All rights reserved.

I LIKE TO SAY I grew up in paradise. Which is how Pasadena seemed, after my first
four years in Amsterdam, my second five in Lawrence, Kansas. Not that those places
weren't lovely too, if not, actually, exquisitely beautiful. But there was something about
moving to a place that seem eternally tropical that killed me. (I have written about that in
my books, and in many many blogs.)

Likewise, when you leave paradise, and move back to a two-, three-, or four-season
world... (I'm never sure which Seattle is! I am thinking maybe two, the seasons being
called Gray, and Bright-Gray.) But when I first moved to Seattle after college, in 1981, I
was higher than a kite!! The clean of the water, the fresh of the air, the strange novelty of
deciduous trees... Well, quite frankly, killed me again. I ran around writing poetry about
trees! About the bare branches of trees against those sullen gray skies.

But what I missed, sometimes, was what seemed the inherently greater, more natural
friendliness of sunwarmed people. Seattle has a reputation for being a bit chilly
sometimes. But you learn to forge your flightpaths creatively. You dip a toe into the chilly
waters, test where warmer currents may flow. But what I also always missed, that I could
not fabricate here, was the light. I have talked to visual artists who have felt that way too.
Who could never adapt to a change in light, a particular new color of light, in moving to a
new place. For me, it was the feeling of the color yellow, that seemed to permeate the air
there, in my beloved Southland.

So, I painted the walls of my workroom yellow!!
(Just like the many boxes on this site.)

Well, it ain't no grand room! As my husband once said, we are urban pioneers. The house,
bought cheap in 1987, isn't even finished yet.  We interpreted fixer-upper as a sort of
poetry too. (Just like my bare tree branches.) So, my yellow room is as much an illusion, a
metaphor, as it is a reality. The floors are now over one-hundred years old, and I really
like that, I do! The ceiling has grown more blotchy-brown than yellow, where the rain
seeps through.  But I don't know how to fix that. I cook the fried-rice, the lentil soup, the
salmon sometimes. The ceiling seems more a husband-thing. But it is the room where I
find my center. It is the room where I do all my creative work. It is the room where I
grow my dreams. Virginia Woolf wrote about rooms. About needing a room of one's
own... I think she was right. I do.

When I first started this website, I, with a great ambition, presented great sprawling
pages of photos and prose. (I was learning, playing. Revelling in this new visual world.
Toying with the notion of selling my own books.) I called those pages, Notes from My
Yellow Room. (To distinguish them from my business pages.) But then, reality sets in and
you also discover blogs, and you see... Your elbow gets tired, making all those pages! And
some things are still nicer on paper anyway. But it was marvelous fun to have this new
publishing portal to the world. And I liked the idea of warming this site with some extra
things. Here are some of the original pages that remain. But who knows?! A squirt of oil
to my elbow, I may add more! Stay tuned. Yours. ~b...
.
There's a world where I can go and tell my secrets to...
In my room... Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, 1963...
About the Photos Above...
Right. There, on my wall, are Einstein, Steve Martin, Charles Bronson, Johnny Depp, Sting...
Some old Indian, some old black man. (No, just kidding. I thought the photos were cool!) Good
friends, good company for  me. They are always watching me!

Left. My window looks out onto a little roof, where the squirrels come to visit me. Although, I
will admit, that scares me a bit. (They have a studio apartment in the attic of our house.) For
awhile, a possum had a studio apartment beneath our porch! I think they all want to get...closer
to me!!

Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near...
Just like me, they long to be... Close to you.
The Carpenters, 1970.
I have a song lyric for everything.=)

About this PhotoMama...
When I began with my first cellphone, several years ago, and first began to experiment with
digital photos, I posted these photos of my room on Myspace, so that my new friends could see.
But I kept looking at them myself, again and again and again and again, so pleased to make
photos so easily!! Every time I looked, this song came to my head.

In My Room, by the Beach Boys...

That is the link for my homage on Youtube, to this lovely song. (With vocals, piano, cello, and
accordion by me.) I guess I have a thing about rooms. Growing up in a family of six kids, it was
good to get away sometimes, into, amazingly... How did we do that?! Your own room.
.