Picture a man of 44 on his hands and knees in the living room at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, crawling into a blanket fort his 6-year-old built out of two dining chairs, the couch cushions and the good quilt off the guest bed. She has made a door out of a dish towel. She tells him to knock. He knocks on the dish towel.
Inside there is about 3 feet of headroom. The flashlight from the garage is on, aimed at the ceiling, which is the quilt, which was his mother's. His lower back has an opinion about the whole arrangement. His phone buzzes in his pocket three times, and he lets it.
She wants to know if he would rather be a bear or a wolf. He says bear. She tells him that is the wrong answer.
He stays until bath time, and for most of it he is about 9. Getting out, he is 90: one hand on the couch, one knee at a time, and a noise he did not mean to make.
The quilt, the sore back, the girl with the right answer and the best 40 minutes of his week were all inside the same 3 feet, and any one of them was easy to miss.
Most weeks have a fort in them somewhere: a kid who wants you on the floor, a friend who wants you on the porch, a question asked at the wrong time of night. It is easy to see it as one more thing standing between you and the dishes.
“Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 11:7
The door is a dish towel. Knocking on it takes about 10 seconds.
The fort was still up on Saturday.