"Une chambre à soi

A room to yourself.

A territory. For creation, Virginia Woolf used to say, we need to demarcate a territory, we need respite, resources.

I built it slowly. I started with every corner of the faculty, every corner of the building was familiar: The light courtyard where we'd all sit for coffee just on the edge so as not to step on the grass - which out of shyness never wished to grow; the stepped staircase railing and the generous ledge in the hallways where time hung on a word; the darker back ends of the halls where you hid to finish your boards when the panel presentations were on; the project graveyard in the basement, at the entrance on the left, near the janitor's booth, which Bistriceanu once showed us on the sly...

Then at home, in front of the board, at night, after 11 o'clock, with only the lamp bent in reverence over the board. Then on the train, in the car, on the bicycle... Then anywhere...