to the exclusion

Is it a healthy thing, this ability as an academic to focus on one thing, one topic, to the exclusion of all else? I haven't had a space in which to work since leaving the UK last December. But today, the delivery men lugged the components of a brand new desk up 5 flights of stairs. I lugged a shiny new laser printer up said stairs. And a chair. And now, for the first time in 10 long months, I have a space, a place, a horizontal surface upon which to work, and upon which to leave my work. Such a small thing, really, but the prices I've paid to get here - to get back to here - were never trivial. And the space, where I'm sitting now (admittedly, slightly worse for the wear after a truly lovely dinner party last night), is the penultimate step in my ever narrowing focus. On my work, on the letters to be written, writing samples to organise, the campaign, as it were, to be marshalled. I come alive in this space, but as time wears on it can be impossibly numbing, dehumanising, as well. Though I know that's the end of this path, for right now I strike out along it with joyous, and grim, determination.