After college, I moved into a small garage apartment. At $450 per month, it was a steal to have my own place, a 168 square foot studio with a free parking spot in the driveway.
I tried to start a container garden in that driveway. It faced north so nothing survived except onions, but it changed my life one morning by attracting a feral bunny (as I headed out to inquire about an internship at Dwell Magazine). I never saw that little guy again (and Dwell never called back), but the moment of staring deep into the eyes of another creature led to adopting two rabbits and a season of volunteering at the House Rabbit Society.
The interior of this converted single car garage was painted light yellow to maximize the natural light. Even though the window orientations were not ideal, it still had glass in two directions with a window over the kitchenette and a big glass patio door looking into the back yard.
I built custom bookshelves, borrowing a table saw from the Berkeley tool library to with split 2×2’s clamped around PVC pipes. I maximized every cubic inch for my books and my rabbits. It was tight, but there was just enough space to clank out fifty thousand words for a NaNoWriMo T-shirt, clean up on Monday Nights for Irish dancing at the Starry Plough, and assemble portfolios for graduate schools.
Twenty years ago, I drew this top down, single-point perspective as one of the projects in those portfolios.
When I left, I swore I’d return to this city that I loved so dearly.
I’ve visited twice.
