OYM Day 12: The Big White Box
Where do you go in your head when you need to escape? I’m fairly certain everyone has a place in their mind. You’re a certain age, in a certain room, and you can even smell it.
4 kids. 1 big white box. It was a tight fit. Add the cat and dog, sometimes a bird cage…
For me, it’s the big white box. Growing up in Indiana, we lived in a pink 2-story brick-house. It may be hard to believe, but we were the only pink house on the street. It had a basement that was sectioned off into a play room and a laundry room. One of those basements with the drop ceiling and foam tiles, fluorescent lighting. The big white box lived in the laundry room, an arms distance between the washer/dryer and an old drafting desk.
I think my dad built the big white box. It was as long and wide as a full size bed and came up to my neck. It had 2 set of doors on the front and a big flat surface on top.
Am I painting the picture well enough? If not, picture this: a big, white box with doors.
I’m not really sure how it came to be. Storage, I assume. My mom would fold and sort laundry on top of it. Inside there were sleeping bags and old clothes. Depending on the time of year, you could even find some Christmas presents in there.
On stormy days when the tornado sirens would wail, my 3 sisters and I would cram ourselves into the box and wait, while my mom ran around the house looking for the dog and 2 cats. It was dark and humid inside, and smelled of plywood and camping. I would lean against the sleeping bags and wait, hearing the winds howl and my sisters symphony of asthmatic breathing.
On more than one occasion, I found my young self, crawling into the big white box on sunny days. When the screaming was too loud or when my hurt clawed at my insides to be set free, I would hide away in it’s sturdy walls and wait out my storms.
Now, as an adult, when I feel like running away, even if for a few minutes, I think of the big white box.
I go inside and breathe in it’s must, feel the damp raise the hairs on my arms, my heart rate steadying.