The Base

Oh, brilliant. A haunted tree house with paperwork. | Crowley, 2023-CRT

There was this one sentence I wrote everywhere back in 2022: Of course it all happened in my head, but does that mean it wasn't real?

I've always had a safe space. The little girl who read by flashlight, the little girl who saw shapes in the stars, the little girl who dreamed, and the little girl who already had that place in her head; she's the one who created it.

Like most kids, at some point in my life, I thought growing up was a goal in itself. As though there were only two boxes, one labeled "childhood" and the other "adulthood," with absolutely nothing in between; home ended up in the childhood box.

And it spent years waiting in the attic.

Then two things happened.

First, my mom told me about this marvelous place she could visit whenever she meditated. There were these enormous trees, waterfalls filled with glitter, monkeys and elephants guarding the place, her place, and everything felt so real that she could reach out, extend her hand, and feel it all, right down to her bones.

Second, my therapist asked me if I had a safe place. 

A safe place? I thought about my mom's garden. Wasn't that her safe place? I wish I had that, I thought, I wish I had somewhere as beautiful as that place with the singing waterfalls. 

So, I came home. And I opened that fucking box.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I wasn't just born a little girl who felt most alive in worlds that never were; I was also born a writer.

What began as a little place that sheltered me from the monsters under the bed didn't vanish the day those monsters finally decided to finally do something else with their lives.

The damn place grew; it grew teeth, it grew a roof, it grew fucking pages.

Then Nick arrived and, well, let's just say we had to knock down a few walls.