It’s Me! Six-Years-Old and in the flowers again.

Everyone wants to feel safe—at least that’s what I’d like to believe. A place where you can be you. No one else. Laugh as loud as you want. Be as crazy as you want. Sing a million times louder than you’d ever would where others can hear you.

The mountains are a safe place for me. Growing up, my mother would take me to Colorado to visit my aunts and uncles. We’d go hiking. I’d wander a little ways following a string of wild flowers, feeling the call of a really great rock where I’d sit, I’d bow my head, and I’d dream. The breeze would flutter the ends of my braids. The crisp air did wonders for my mood.

Now-a-days, I don’t have a quiet place. I take my thinking and writing moments as I get them, sometimes stealing them if I have to. All I have to do is give my mind permission, once I know the kids are safe that is, and I let my mind wander. Maybe I’m at the gym with my headphones in my ears, listening to a song I’ve planned to set the mood for a scene I need to write. Maybe I’m sprawled on my bed on top of my fleecy lavender blanket belly down, with the laptop on top in front of me so I can type away. I dream, I drift, and sometimes I dream about the perfect office space with a wooden loft stretched half way across the room, a dangly rope to swing down into a pile of bean bag chairs covering the floor. Of course I’d squeeze in a desk somewhere, probably right under the loft.

What’s your safe space? Where do you feel wildly creative, even if you imagine that spot?

~Erika

Me again! On a ski lift in Colorado.