The Spontaneous Animism of Childhood

V.  The Spontaneous Animism of Childhood – 

I was an introspective child. I liked
to take my solitude now and then.
My favorite retreat was in the
backyard, a little alcove amid the
rose bushes. There – my old life
would slip away like a dream upon
awakening. This was all there had
ever been, this vast forest where I
dwelt among the wild and natural
things, roses blooming all around me.
On occasion I received a visitor, a pure
white cat with pale blue eyes, like an
emissary from another world. Rarer
still where moments when the backyard
was transformed, not into a forest, but
into something else, something that
wasn’t a ‘where’ or a ‘when,’
something else entirely, maybe
a ‘why,’ fleeting moments,
eternal moments. They
felt like home.