November 10, 2007

Safe As Houses


A cold and wet November day calls for the building of forts. JT was here all morning and the boys built a doozy. No blanket was spared, no pillow left unsmushed. And look at how cozy it is!

Did you build forts when you were a kid? Most of my strongest fort memories are of the elaborate ones I built in the woods in the foothills at the end of our development. There was something so thrilling about being able to create a habitat that was entirely of my own making. Of his fort today, D said, "It has food, and a place to sleep, and a bathroom... a person could really live here!" (The food and the bathroom were imaginary, but that's obviously beside the point.) Seeing the pride shining in his eyes, I remembered being particularly thrilled when I figured out how to weave some branches together into a semblance of a shelf... even as a child, I included books in my list of the bare necessities.

Marie Howe has a great poem called "The Fort"... if you don't know her work, go snag a copy of What the Living Do. If you're a friend of mine and you don't like it, I'll personally refund your money.

(Blogging every day this month,
and tentatively thinking my toe is on the mend,
thanks for asking.)

3 comments:

Chelle said...

My parents had two large arm chairs (they're down in the basement now) which when placed back to back about 3 feet apart made the perfect base for a blanket fort, and the gully behind the house provided numerous locations for forts.

Stacy said...

My sister and I built forts with big blankets and afghans and then we would sit inside, pleased with our cozy nest.

I'm glad that our boys are having the same fun.

Carolee said...

we built forts in the woods, too. we kept people out by telling them the woods were haunted.

inside, we liked to hang blankets over the table and live under it.