Childhood Hideaways

Childhood Hideaways

As a child, I had my own bedroom. My platform rocker and a new Nancy Drew mystery were all the hideaway I needed for myself.

I had a girlfriend who lived a few blocks away, though.  We played together in an attic above her family garage. It had retractable stairs that we could pull up after us, but her mother could pull them down whenever she wanted to. Since our physical explorations of each other could be interrupted with little warning, we had to be able to get decently clothed at a moment’s notice.

No other actual hideaways come to mind. The trees in our yard weren’t big enough to support a tree house, but I climbed them every so often anyway.

One summer’s day, I was swimming with friends at the country club. I decided that we should have a tea party on the bottom of the pool, where it was still and quiet. So we breathed deeply, exhaled enough to sink down, and sat in a circle passing pieces of pretend cake and sipping from pretend tea cups. That’s how a sci fi fan plays house. Since we had to surface for air every minute or two, the party lacked continuity, and our frustration soon broke it up.

I was a little sprite of a kid, and sometimes just had to see if I could fit myself into some small space. The Jewish Community Center playground had a cement turtle that formed a rough hemisphere with a diameter of about four feet. The shell was maybe six inches thick, and it cleared the ground by about a foot. I could crawl under the edge of the shell, and sit cross-legged inside it. Away from the shouting and running of the more active day-campers, my introverted self enjoyed the quiet, calm, and safety of my borrowed shell.

I continued to like tucking myself into small places, if only to prove that I could fit. I was in a high school physiology class when I just had to get inside the wheeled cabinet housing our skeleton. The class had not yet started, and the cabinet’s door faced the edge of the classroom, so few kids saw me step in and pull the door closed. The teacher, however, did see me enter, but dear Mr. Lucas shared my playful spirit. He wheeled the cabinet around so the door faced the class and he stood next to it. I stepped out of the cabinet with a proud “ta daa!” to my startled classmates.

The last time I tucked myself into a small space, I was in college. I got it into my head that I could get my body into a clothes dryer. I did get myself in there, but the space was so uncomfortably confining that I immediately backed out. Thank goodness my roommate was too civilized to close the door on me or, even worse, turn the machine on.

Since leaving college, I have lived alone, and my home has been my hideaway. It gives me all the privacy and security and, usually, quiet that I need.