Part of my summer is spent in Professional Development with one group of teachers or another.
Last week, I was with the Language Arts teachers, and the presenter took everyone through an activity to help students come up with topics for writing.
It was called “I Remember” and students were to write as many true sentences as they could that began with the words “I Remember.”
Students would then choose one of those sentences and blow it out into a full writing piece.
In order for us to see the power of the exercise, the presenter led us through the exercise and we created our own lists.
While we didn’t have to blow them out into our own writing pieces, one of the sentences I wrote has been stuck in my mind, and so I finally decided the only way to get it out of there would be to write about it.
The sentence was “I remember secret doors.”
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I grew up in an old house that was built in the 1920’s.
It was a modest home with two bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen, dining room and living room, and a huge basement and garage that still had the iron rings on the walls to tie up horses.
It was a house that whispered to me at every turn.
Even the outside of the house called to me to peek under the slate stones that made up our front walk to see if there was a secret staircase below.
To climb the brick chimney and look out over the neighborhood.
But the best thing about that house was the doors.
There were doors throughout that house…some small, some large, and all promised secrets and adventure beyond.
In the basement, the tiny metal door behind the furnace that was the place where the ashes fell from the ash pit in the fireplace, was the perfect location for making up stories about people who had to hide out and take refuge in the basement.
I imagined that behind the little door, the hideaways would find secret messages and food and supplies from the owner of the house while they waited for the signal that the coast was clear.
The original wood and glass door that went from the basement to the garage was a passageway back in time where, once I passed through it, led to those horses actually being tied in the garage, waiting to be brushed and fed by the little grooms girl…me.
My parents bedroom had a small annex that had four small doors, three of which were tiny closets where my mother stored towels and sheets, but the fourth door led to a small storage space where my parents actually did find certificates to prove that a previous owner had purchased land in London on which to build a Jewish hospital in 1911.
Aside from the total coolness factor of that find, it spurred me on to further dream about what might be behind those doors.
And then there was my room.
In my room, there was a closet, and in my closet was another door.
That door led to small, extra closet/storage space.
That extra door was the center of so many of my dreams as a child.
It was my wardrobe to Narnia.
My gate to the Secret Garden.
I dream about that door, still.
I dream about other doors, as well.
I also dream about the other doors in that house, and I dream about doors that never existed.
I’m not sure what it all means, if anything.
What I do know is that I firmly believe that those doors led me to develop my imagination, and for that, I am grateful.
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