It is so gorgeous outside that I see no reason to write about how I was thinking earlier that if I got in a car crash I probably would be able to get out of my remaining residencies. Nope, it's just too pretty for that.
How about this instead: where did you like to hide when you were small? Not because you were scared necessarily, but because it was a nice place to go?
I'm writing a little story about a girl who can hear voices from under the sidewalk (that's a bit of a simplicfication, but it's part of it) and it got me thinking about the places where I felt like just me when I was a kid: between the hedges and my grandparent's house, up in the apple tree in our own backyard, on top of the shelf in the closets...where did you go?
Now it's into a classroom with me! (520 is not involved this afternoon, thankfully.)
((Holy fuck. I know you're all smarter than I and probably already know this, but I was just listening to music and reading about other music and one thing lead to another until I found out there is a solo artist called Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. I don't care what he sounds like--that's the answer to 520!))
Posted by Ida at February 1, 2007 01:34 PM1-3 yrs of age: Apparently, in the barn on the driver's seat of a big old rusty tractor. Or in the chicken coop.
3-10: The little wood-slatted hamper thing at the bottom of the clothes chute. And the cellar, where all the canned goods were kept.
10-18: My room. Like any teenager.
When I briefly lived in my grandparent's house in PDX (around ages 6 - 7), I liked to "hide" in their basement in a little space next to the dryer, where it was warm & dark and the sound of the dryer made sort of a white-noise that blocked out all other sounds - sort of a zen-space, very peaceful.
When I was a little older and we lived in Lake Oswego, all the neighbor kids used to build forts in a little triangle of woods at the end of our block. We'd hide out there for entire afternoons.
When I moved in with my mom & her husband at around the age of 10, I spent a lot of time in a dilapidated barn on an overgrown piece of property just adjacent to our house, and also at a little pond deep in the woods about a half-hour's hike from my elementary school.
As a teenager, I'd hide out just about anywhere except my room, since I had to share it with a brother who was four 1/2 years younger than me.
Posted by: COMTE at February 2, 2007 12:04 PMI also liked the top shelf of the closet, amongst the blankets, or behind the couch. The tree that had a knothole where I could hide easter candy and, later, a book. My favorite was the barn, when it was loaded with hay in late summer I'd go in and move the bales around so there was a tunnel to the top back corner, under the metal roof. I'd stash books, a flashlight and snacks up there and then just hang out all afternoon. The best was when there was a huge thunderstorm--it had lightning rods, so I was safe, but it was still really thrilling.
Posted by: Appalachia at February 4, 2007 03:29 PMOoh. A barn is better than mine, but our house had dutch eaves, so under the house eaves on the roof of the garage was a great place to hide. I also liked to sing really loud to myself up there.
As a very littler person though, I shared a bed and room with alternating sisters every 6 months. My mom dedicated the corner beside the piano and behind the recliner as all my own. (I remember taking food out of the refrigerator and hiding it in my corner because I was a squirrell getting ready for winter. My mom put it back after I went to bed.) It gave me a real sense of security in life.
Posted by: sonya at February 5, 2007 02:25 PM0-8 - underneath my parents bed.
8-12 - Pinon-shaded, deep arroyos or dry acequias, especially if you could use them instead of sidewalks to get to other places.
12-18 - community theatre
behind my polite manners.
Posted by: sean at February 6, 2007 09:35 PMIn one house there was a little unused cabinet on the floor in the kitchen and it had a drawer on top of it that you could pull out and let light into the cabinet. I would play in there for hours with toys and such like it was a little cave.
Posted by: weirdnugget at February 13, 2007 02:13 PM