A Missive from my Tree House

From my disorganized card table writing desk, in a dimly lit room we call the ‘library,’ on a blustery afternoon in May 2020, I am writing. There are a few things on my mind including my wife’s health, my health the Corona Virus, the continued Nevada state lock down to prevent its spread.

Those are the ‘bad’ things caught in the plaque of my aging mind. Other things pushing their way about up top is the fact the both my wife and I are healthy, we have a roof over our heads, good food, clean clothes and each other.

But for right now I’m in another place, my secret tree house, and no, you cannot come and visit with me while I’m here. It is simply for me.

It is where I dream, imagine, work things out in my head. It is my lonely place and no foreigners are served here, because I’m the only one with a passport this this kingdom.

Feeling above it all, I realize that should I climb any higher or move my fort closer to the stars, that I might tumble down, hurt myself. That is how fragile a writers mind is in real life.

You have one of these places, too – I’m sure of this. Only you call it something different and it looks, smell and feels different from mine.

Your tree house might be your dinner table, bed, couch, the attic or basement, an old outbuilding, the bed or cab of your truck, or maybe the table you eat at while on break from your job. And no – I am not allowed, and no one should be allowed entry because you are the only one with the proper papers to gain entry.

Those papers might be a notebook, a piece of typing paper or a computer. It might include a keyboard, a pen, a pencil or all of the above in which you mark passage from your kingdom to the other world, the one that is work-a-day, pedestrian as the upper crush is wont to say, the place were the cracks in the sidewalk or gravel road trips up from time to time.

And while I suspect you, like the hundred others that may or may not read this, I don’t expect a response. All I can hope for, even without knowing the results, is that this inspires you to feel, think and write.