I don’t know how long ago it began, but I’ve always had the instinct to hide out in times of stress. It might be hereditary – as a child, there was a storage room off the garage where my dad had his leatherwork tools and his fly-tying apparatus (complete with a little hot plate to melt lead over hooks) and shelves of all kinds of odds and ends. Very little has moved in that room since 1998, and it still smells of old leather and gun oil and stacks of old Field and Stream magazines.
I remember being a kid in day care and finding a spot under the bleachers to hide, or high up to one side of the stage in junior high, or in a back corner of the almost-totally-unused library in high school. In college, it seemed like half my time was spent finding some place not to be found – a forgotten third level storage alcove in the old gym, a corner of the old ruined boiler building, a practice room in the music building around a warren of corners.
And then there was the shower. My dorm in my sophomore year was the oldest standing, dating to about 1940, and it had shower stalls with foot-thick walls floor to ceiling and a spray that was less like hot water and more like a radiator breach. It was possible to pin the curtain in place with the various bottles from your little crate of shampoo and soaps and whatnot, upend the crate, fold a couple of washcloths on top, and just sit in the steam for a half hour or more. And as long as it wasn’t in the morning, there was almost never anyone around. I fell asleep sat there more than once.
I’m sure it must have happened at Vanderbilt, but I don’t remember exactly where the spots were, if any. I was more likely to be in the corner of the deck at SATCO or in a random library carrel or up in the Overcup Oak nursing a triple-espresso milkshake with the grounds in it. And the there was DC, and I didn’t have much time or opportunity to hide out at work other than the cigar shop or the remote deck where I would smoke and do remote control help tickets.
And then, in the heart of at first chaotic and trying autumn at my first California job, it started again. The warehouse was so crowded and cluttered that I could easily drag a pallet of shrink wrapped Power Mac G5s here, another pallet of Pelican cases there, pull a third in behind me to block the path, and just like that I had a six foot wall around my workbench in all directions. Nothing but the tinny sounds of a stream from Virgin Radio UK, and the solitude to work without distractions.
That’s part of the whole drive for 5-space. I think about throwing a dark towel over the shower door to soak up some of the morning light through the window and make the space feel cozier. I think about holing up in the garage to watch the laundry machines work and read quietly. I curl under the covers and wish we were in a sleeping bag in a pup tent in some distant part of the woods miles from anywhere or anyone. And I think that’s why I like the fog, like the overcast, even like the light blowing rain and low cloud we had earlier this week. Just give me a peacoat to armor myself, and I’ll be happy to disappear for a while. Sometimes, you’re just better off without too much light.