Play

When I was little, I wanted a play house. One of my friends had a wooden one in her back yard. Another friend had a plastic tent with pictures on the sides of a house that we played with indoors. I thought both of them were so cool.

It wasn't until decades later that I realized I did have a play house. In back of our house was an immense pine tree with branches that came all the way to the ground. About ten feet behind that was a wooden fence. That was where I played outside, because it was private. The pine was a wall. The fence was another. And nobody was watching from each of the empty sides. There was a fallen branch that I pretended was a horse. There were leaves I pretended were coins. And I walked on dead pine needles, and felt as if I were floating.

In my friend's play houses, I was a kid. In my own, I could be anything.