I am going to digress from the tone of some of my other writing and share with you something that I wrote in late 2002 right after we closed on our lake cottage. I will tell you that I was struggling in some areas of my life, particularly in the area of relating to church, just so you will understand the tone, but the details of which are really not important to the story.

The setting of the cottage, which really isn't a cottage, per se, it is a cabin, high atop a hill, overlooking one of the Finger Lakes in New York, is quiet, somewhat rugged (although we have a nice new hot water heater, shower, and other bathroom facilities) and very peaceful. To get to the lakefront you have to traverse the stairs, which I have never heard one person NOT complain about, save my 4 year old grandson, who has too much energy anyway. There are 110 steps between the cottage and the lake, the only nice part being that it feels like you are taking a walk in the woods with all the trees around. The bad part is that it is like climbing 7 stories, and after doing that five times a day, it gets annoying. The first summer there I lost a pants size, which I have never gained back, so I guess I shouldn't complain. My husband has set up Direct TV which kind of shatters the illusion for me that we are away from all civilization, but it does help in the pitch black evenings, when the kids want to stay up late, to keep them busy watching something, so I can go to bed.

My Fort

When I was little, my two best friends, and I used to build "forts" in the woods in our neighborhood. A fort was a place you made when you wanted to hide away from everyone. For some reason your fort made you feel safe. Sometimes your fort was more like a "clubhouse" that you built with boards and nails and stuff that you scavenged off of people. Most times it was just a little clearing in the woods that you put stones around to mark it as yours.

You used all your mothers old hand-me-down stuff to fix it up and you didn't worry about stuff when you were in your fort. It wasn't like the real world. The world of school, and work, and chores, and parents bossing you around, and all the stuff that makes you grow up. It wasn't like that world.

In your fort, it was just you and her, dressed in your father's very old, white button down shirts, that they used to wear to business meetings but now the collar is frayed and the elbows are thin, so you begged to have it before it was thrown in the rag pile. The shirt tails hung down to your knees, but you liked it that way. You and your best friend wore these funny looking sailor hats on your heads and with your best friend and her sister by your side, you felt like you could conquer any enemy.

My friend could draw. She couldn't just draw. She could draw like a real artist. You would sit and dream about how you were going to write a book and how it would be published someday. She would sit and draw like she was going to be a real artist. Her sister didn't know what she wanted to be but we knew she was really smart. Smarter than us even though she was a whole year younger!

On Saturdays you would look through all the couches at both of your houses and when you found enough pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters (you were luuuckeeeee if you found a quarter!) you would walk up to the five and dime a few streets away and you would buy a bunch of candy and stuff that your mother would NEVER let you have at home and when you got back to your fort you would sit and eat Twinkies and candy bars and dream about all the stuff you would buy if you ever had a million dollars. You would forget that soon you would have to go home and "pretend" to eat dinner because if you didn't your mother would find out that you ate junk food in your fort and she might tell you that you couldn't have your fort anymore.

In your fort you could be anyone that you wanted to be and no one was around telling you anything else. I knew my friend would be a great artist someday and she knew I would be a great writer. We didn't know what her sister would be great at but we knew she would be great because she was so smart. Smarter than almost anybody!

In your fort you could pretend. You could pretend that the world wasn't really so big, and bad and scary. You forgot, until your mother rang the cowbell at the door to come in for dinner reminded you, you forgot that there even was a "real world" out there.

Your fort was your fort and other kids weren't supposed to come in your fort unless they asked. It was an unspoken rule about forts. Your fort felt safe because you thought that no one else knew where your fort was, even if they did.

My friend grew up and went to a prestigious School of the Arts. I don't know if she ever became a "great" artist but she's still one of the best I ever knew and I know quite a few. Her sister grew up and became a lawyer. I don't know if she ever became a "great" lawyer because she got married, had kids, and maybe she thought they were more important than being a lawyer. In my mind, she will always be one of the smartest people I know.

I didn't want to grow up. The world was too scary to me. I married young. Maybe so I wouldn't feel so alone and scared in the world. I don't know. I raised some kids, then I raised some more. Ironically, it was having kids that made me grow up. I still wrote, but like Peggy and Janie, I don't know if I was ever "great" either. I wrote in spiral bound books that I called journals but after a while I would re-read the stuff and think it was dumb and throw it away. Now it is common for people to write in journals but back then I only knew a few people who did. I still write sometimes but I don't let people see it. They might laugh straight out, or think it's stupid, or they might just tell the sound man to turn the microphone down. Either way, it doesn't feel good.

You always thought that after you grew up you would be like all the other grown ups you knew when you were little. So wise, so perfect in every way. You always thought that when you grew up everything would be so happy because grown ups don't hurt your feelings the way your sisters and your friends at school did. That is what you thought. You always thought you wouldn't have to hide from the world in your fort anymore after you were grown up.

That is what you thought.

I'm glad that God knew I would need a fort when I was grown up. I'm glad He gave me one.