childhood hideouts
06.27.02 @ 4:30 p.m.
I read an article in the Living section of today's paper about how this one author thinks that it's important for children to have little hidey-holes that are nice and private to play in and stimulate the imagination. I liked the article a lot. The more I think on it, a lot of my childhood revolved around forts and such. The most amazing private little place I ever had was actually around junior high. I had been helping my parents clear a field of evil, evil blackberry bushes (which has since grown back with a vengance) and I found this perfect dome of blackberry vines that had grown over a tree limb. I cut a doorway in it and made a little door out of twine and branches. It was lovely, and on one side, you could see through the vines to the creek in the pasture and watch the ducks and other birds. I loved it. I remember that it was jr high because I think that's when I read Clan of the Cave Bear. I remember contemplating the religions in that book and grinding up red volcanic rock in there to make a red paste. God, it was fun. (You can perhaps see now how I'm a bit socially behind... People were having boyfriends and being twits in jr high and I was out in a field pretending to be a prehistoric woman.)
Jodi and I had the forest beside her garage to play in, too. We spent a lot of time playing 'house' among the big boulders there. We each had our own 'rooms' and we spent a lot of time there. My 'bed' was a big rock shaped like a chaise lounge, and Jo's was the big round flat rock. In the back was the refridgerator rock, which had no particular shape that made it a fridge, just that we needed something to do with it. Later on, when Jo's brother insisted on joining us, that became his room. Mildly cruel of us, considering that it was far back and hard to get to. We used to take algae (we used to call it seaweed) out of the drainage ditch (the water was pretty clean, I mean, we live in the sticks. It's all rainwater draining out of farm fields. I used to take my Barbies swimming were it crosses under the road at the Petersons' house) and hang it on the wires of the electric fence to dry or we'd pound it into patties on a big rock.
For a while, when they had a little fenced in cow field but no cow, we'd make paths through the tall grass and little round 'rooms'. That was so much fun.
I also used to make couch cushion forts, big cardboard box houses (I remember watching Ramblin' Rod or Captain Kangaroo or something from a window in a refridgerator box when I was very small indeed) in addition to finding closets to hide in. For a while, when the barn wasn't the nasty gross place I consider it to be now, I used to hide out in there. For a while, my dad and I discussed making a room in the hayloft with a ladder up to it. Now I wish we had made some kind of clubhouse or something. But we never did. I could have a real escape. I don't really have anything here except my room. And that doesn't really count. The TV and the stereo and everything make it a living space and not a hideout.
Sometimes at school I think about finding a corner of the basement to hide out in, or some little bit of the EMU. Something moderately private. But I never follow through. I was telling my mom about the article, and she thinks that adults need that kind of space too, especially her. Dad keeps the tredmill in their bedroom and runs almost everyday. Tragically (for me) when the door is left open (like mom left it open today for and extended period of time), the smell of him running and everything fills the upstairs. He doesn't believe me and told me as much when he asked why I had the fan pointing out the window up here. Anyway, since Mom doesn't have solitude in her bedroom, she wants to build a gazeebo or 'bird blind' or something in the field or the backyard so she can sneak away. Like she ever would. That woman has something against relaxing. She just can't not do anything. I can do nothing for long stretches without any problems. She suggested I watch Quadraphenia during dinner. I looked at her like she was insane. I can't watch a movie during dinner. I'd have to keep rewinding 'cause people'd talk through it or I'd be distracted by eating and she'd just get annoyed with it.
You know what? She is insane. She suggested putting acoustic tile and flourescent lights in the kitchen/dining area. That is the worst idea I've ever heard in my entire life. Why on earth would someone put office style ceilings in their home? Especially when we have a really nice ceiling in there already? It's completely crazy. The woman is a total loon, especially when it comes to decorating. I think she just goes with what's on sale, and it almost always turns out badly. You can't decorate based on what's on sale. That's just a bad idea. I hope to god something happens to ruin that nasty light colored fake wood flooring they plan to put in the kitchen, because it's all wrong for the room. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. But as the teenager, I have no say. Forget that they have half a dozen projects waiting to be finished already. What the hell, let's just start another one! And she blames us for her being ashamed of the fucking house. My mess is nothing in comparison to a half painted house, gaps between the wall and the ceiling in the kitchen from where they replaced the cabinets, the MISSING WALL IN THE BATHROOM, the missing floor in the other bathroom and the adjacent cabinet, the crappy do-it-yourself tile job with the uneven, self-cut tiles across the top, the mishmash of clearance tiles behind the stove which haven't been grouted, so shit gets stuck between them... God, I hate the woman sometimes. And then my parents get all mad at ME when I try to call to their attention that starting a NEW project might not be the best idea. You know what? I have to live here too (at least during summers and certain weekends now that I'm in college) and I have friends who I want to have over and I have to deal with that woman complaining about how she doesn't want people to see the house WHEN MOST OF IT IS HER OWN DAMN FAULT.
I'm so angry. I have to go do something else now to take my mind off it or release all my pent up emotion or something right now.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
