There is a passage in the Bible that
haunts me during my dark times: First Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I
spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I
became a man, I put away childish things.” When the stresses of adulthood reach
their peak and I feel like I am ready to break, I seek shelter in the safest
place from my childhood and I simply cannot seem to put it away. There is this
empathic resonance that makes me feel safe and secure there, even in my
memories.
It’s a simple enough room I suppose;
four walls, two windows, bed, card table, dresser and closet. It was special
because it was the first time I had a room to myself. The four years we lived
on Elm Street gave me my own space, away from my elder brother. It was in that
room that I could get away from the real world and step into my own mind; my
own imagination.
The most important aspect of the
room, the one that provided me the security was the lock on the door. If I
wanted to be by myself, that lock made sure that no one could come in, unless I
wanted them to. It protected me from the frosty grip of reality when my father
abandoned me. My father promised if I was a good boy he would be at JB’s restaurant
to pick me up for our week together. He never showed up, even though I had been
especially good since our last visit. When my mother pulled into the driveway
of the little duplex, I ran for my room and locked that door. I had to think it
through, with the mind of a child, and puzzle through what I had left undone.
With the door locked, nothing else existed.
The room had this strange smell that
was two parts wood smell from the press-board dresser and one part turtle-water.
The first summer we stayed in the duplex, I watched a painted turtle that was a
class pet from the school where my step-dad worked. I was trying to prove that
I could keep an animal, so that I could get a pet of my own. The turtle was
neat, but he wasn't really the kind of pet you could take out and play with,
but I would take him out and play in the yard. When he wasn't being played
with, he lived in a large metal tub that sat atop an old card table. After that
summer, I got a kitten of my own, but the turtle lived on and the smell of his
water just never cleared the air.
After the turtle left, the card
table became home to my stuffed animals. Not all of them mind you, just the
most numerous type: stuffed bears. My favorite was an antique Winnie the Pooh who
had lost his red felt shirt a few years before we moved in. This bear
originally was given by my Uncle Gary to my older brother, who in turn gave it
to me. His yellow fur had become dingy in places; the casualty of being handled
by a small boy. Pooh was joined by a cadre of Care Bears and other nameless
stuffed bears, each with the power to banish nightmares or go on a rocket
adventure.
The bears certainly weren't the only
stuffed animals. I had a veritable menagerie of stuffed animals: lions, and
tigers, and bears, as well as rabbits, penguins, and raccoons. Each had a place
within the room. The stuffed cats occupied the top of my dresser, the penguin
in the corner between my closet and the window opposite of my door, and the
raccoon in the opposite corner, beside my bed, while the rabbit sat between the
door and my bed. Each had their place and I would often pretend it was a zoo
and I was the zookeeper, though in reality they were taming the animals in my
own mind.
My room not only served as a place
to sleep; it was also the contents of my imagination. The walls were decorated
with wide-ruled lined paper, drawn up to resemble computer screen and ship
controls. The animals, stuffed and alive, were my crew and I often found myself
light years away from the loneliness I felt outside of those four walls. I
would draw the blinds, shutting out the neighbor kids, lock my door, and push
the make-belief comm-control and announce to my crew that we were leaving. A
quick series of taps on another set of control and I would jump onto my bed,
which served as my means of navigating the interstellar vastness inside my
imagination.
After a few years of freedom inside
my room, we had to move. My step-dad was going back to College and my mother couldn't provide a three bedroom place for us any longer. My brother and I were
forced to share a room. While I no longer physically had those four walls to
keep me safe, I still carry it inside me. Sometimes, when the strain of a job,
school, relationship, and depression become too much to bare, I close my eyes
and I am in my room. The door locked, surrounded by my stuffed animals, tapping
away at the controls and rocketing through space. These precious moments are
often the only respite I can enjoy in my hectic life, and while I have grown
into a man, I just can’t put away those childish things.
