A couple of years ago, I decided to convert what we had always dubbed our tornado closet – the storage closet under our stairs and off the kitchen and where we flee when threatened with the dreaded Arkansas tornados – into what’s now known as my Harry Potter office, since Harry’s childhood bedroom was under the stairs. For about the 478th time in my life, my husband and two teens called me crazy. Still, I painted the room a cheery sunshine yellow, adorned it with shelves, hung my awards and diplomas, stuffed it with special keepsakes and plugged in my laptop on the small, garage-sale-find desk.
Though I am six feet tall, the “office” has plenty of room for me. Its creation helped me remember that my respect for small spaces wasn’t something new, rather, it had been with me a lifetime. And it reminded me, after many years, that’s it’s important that we all make a place for ourselves.
As a middle-schooler, my autonomy came on my bicycle, as best friend Heather Bond and I pedaled up and down the rolling streets of Upper St. Clair, a suburb of Pittsburgh, seeking adventure. It was next to a wooden fence and behind a handful of thick, leafy bushes that we crawled, hiding our bikes, and nesting like a pair of birds, trading secrets and dreams for hours. Our tiny, private hideout offered freedom, privacy and independence.
Around that same time, or maybe a few years prior, my sister Jennifer, four years my junior, and I created a secret club in my bedroom’s closet, all 4 by 10 feet of it. Nestled under the white, wooden shelves that lined the left side of the closet, we commiserated about our parents and neatly stored notebooks and pens, flashlights and candy. As the oldest – and by far bossiest – I was the club’s president and treasurer. She was the vice president and secretary. Admittedly, we were management heavy. My sister has become an anchor in my life, a person I turn to when I’m struggling with a decision, frustrated with my parents or proud of an accomplishment. That small closet had enough room for us to bond, form an impenetrable alliance and build a friendship to last forever.
The kitchen of that Pittsburgh house had a built-in desk in the kitchen, located directly under the telephone. Far before the days of cell phones, I would creep under the desk (and over the cat’s bowls of Meow Mix and water) stretching the mustard yellow phone cord to its limit. I curled there for hours at a time, quietly giggling with my girlfriends, evading the listening ears of my parents and doodling on the desk’s underside. That small space kept me out of the way of my family and connected to pre-teen lifelines – my girlfriends.
My Harry Potter office, I suspect, provides the same gift as the bushes, closet and under-the-desk hideaway. I share a bedroom with my husband of 19 years, who I adore. Our house also holds those two delightful teens and two terrific dogs. But still, when I need to reach out to a girlfriend, or conspire with my sister, I have my own spot. Or when I just want to hide and need a little privacy, enveloped – albeit tightly – by reminders of accomplishments and favorite treasures, there’s a place to go.
It’s not big, but it has never needed to be.
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