We’ve made a space that’s cave-like. Cave-like in the ways you...

We’ve made a space that’s cave-like. Cave-like in the ways you want it to be: tight, warm, enclosed, dim-lit and stone-floored. Cave-like, fort-like, womb-like, secret. It takes you in and holds you there. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if it were August – just another storage realm for yuppies on the rise. But deep into this winter, it feels like a good thing to build and a good place to be, this new nook. In a basement of a house on a hill in Somerville, we’ve made this space, bigger than a closet, smaller than a room. M. and I knock into each other, and dance with the ladders to keep out of each other’s way. But building walls still feels like a miracle. Dividing space still feels like a power I shouldn’t possess. And we duck out a small door to get outside after hours underground and face dunes of snow, all the brighter to the eyes after time in a windowless world, and the air feels clearer, and the small birds that gather in the bush nearby, dozens of them, twirping and bouncing from branch to branch, seem happy in the cold. A sudden move and the group of them rises, scattering for a moment then collecting again in the sky, bluer than it’s ever been, and each in-breath is almost painful for the cold air entering warm body, almost painful, but not, and so reminds: how lucky, and how alive.