From the Center of the Rounder

When I was a kid, and my grandma took me shopping downtown, I used to hide in the rounders filled with clothes Now, I know they're called rounders. Then they were just a giant circle of multi-colored fabrics I could sit in the center in and feel safe. It was always cooler in that shaded center. Less fluorescent. Less department store noise. When I looked up it's center and saw the tunnel of light, I had view of the outside, but inside I was safe. What is that? As children we liked to be surrounded by over stuffed pillows or rainbow quilted forts. I wonder if it's reminiscent of the last womb we felt safe in.

Today, when I got home from work, I sat on the floor outside my husband's closet saying hi to our dogs and telling him about my day while he sat at his desk. Behind me was a pile of dirty clothes, and although I knew they held his musky scent from the gym, I flopped back into the t-shirts and track shorts, jeans and colorful socks, and looked up into the row of hanging clothes and flashed back to my childhood.

Above me hung green and blue and red and pink t-shirts and dress shirts. The bottoms all faced me, wrinkled from being pressed together. The tile floor was cool on my back and the clothes beneath cushioned my head. For a moment, I was six again. I was safe.