Forts

When I was a kid, I would build elaborate forts in our back yard. They were a hodgepodge of folding card tables, scraps of cardboard or wood my dad might have had in the garage, sheets, sleeping bags - pretty much anything I could find that could compose of a wall or a roof.

They were sprawling since they were built not with a single end vision in mind as an architect may compose a new building, but thrown together in the moment. Where each "room" was added onto the next and as the space went together, the space found it's own shape and form. I would duck back inside and crawl around - constantly checking and rechecking how everything looked and how I felt being in my creation.

When some of the sheet-walls didn't touch the ground in a way that I liked, I readjusted them which invariably left a new problem on the opposite side of the fort since I took material from that purpose to make this one area look better so I would have to either find a larger sheet or add onto the other side in order to fill that newly formed hole.

I would look at how the light would filter into the little rooms under neath the structure of the folding tables and propped up chairs - how some spaces were darker than others. If it was too dark, I would find something else out of the materials that I had and if what I was looking for wasn't readily found, I would sometimes go into the house and bug my mother for any old sheets she didn't mind me playing with out in the yard.

As I would sit inside, my mind would be whirling of better arrangements, better use of the stuff I had so that every piece that I procured for this project was used in some way and that each material found it's rightful place within this temporary retreat.

I never really considered a master plan before embarking on these endeavors. The forts just grew out of my imagination. And they provided to me a place of my own - as temporary as it might have been. I would crawl inside and peer out into the yard and at the back of the house through the little windows I would leave in the gaps between the sheets and the sleeping bags. And if I was really lucky I would have large scraps of cardboard that I could cut in windows with flaps so I could open and close them at my leisure.

My most favorite times to build these were during storms where in the warm summers of Eastern Oregon spawned the occasional short-lived afternoon thunderstorm and the winds of these storms would blow the farmer's dust into the atmosphere which gave the air a particular smell and look when mixed with a little bit of rain. The billowing clouds above whose undersides looked like a field of gray cotton balls. I would hide inside my fort and watch the unfolding of the storm outside sometimes scampering out to repair a portion of my protection that might have been molested by the wind.

For the inside was my place to experience the changing dynamics of the weather within the safe confines of a structure built by my own hands whose integrity was known only to me.

And I loved it.

The forts of my youth were never to be experienced from the outside. To a casual observer of my activities the forts were ugly, unruly and unregulated. No presence of thought was given to anyone else who would have to deal with looking at my unsightly temporary lump in the yard. They were wholly constructed so that they were interesting from the inside. And for that you needed to be invited.

It follows me into my adulthood where I still retreat to solitary activities in public places where now I set up my electronic fort - comprised of my texting cell phone, iPod and sometimes laptop computer - and review the world and the people around me. To watch their lives intersect in one coffee shop or airport terminal and how so many people can be together at once and only partially interact.

How I enjoy the safety and comfort of a "fort" that I've constructed so that I may interact with a world that is storming outside. Of which interests me greatly but I lack the desire to just stand out in the yard fully exposed to the elements around me.

And that I am not shamed by this - I realize that I am not interested in experiencing life around me in that fashion. It's just not comfortable to me. Although I know that I am intrigued enough to be the person at the window who is willing to readily share what he's observed from his post provided by the gap in the sheet and the sleeping bag held up by the card table. Always quick to repair what the wind may have pulled apart.

I can still recognize the distinct smell the air and the dust.

I can still feel the diffused wind penetrate the fabric walls and how it whipped the small field of grass blades in the yard.

I can still see the dark underbelly of the low-hung storm clouds.

And it still fills me with a sense of awe for it is truly life in its rawest of forms to only be buffeted by the flimsiest of man made structures of which we place the full faith of our talents and abilities as our only defense.

It is an impossible battle.

It is who I am.