a bit about the title of my blog

     Some might wonder at the motivation behind naming my blog after the popular children's series, The Chronicles of Narnia.  I remember reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was younger, possibly eight or nine years old.  It made me believe that magic was possible and that if only I could find the spot, then I, too, could enter Narnia.  In our house growing up, we lived in a one and a half story house, which meant that the "attic" or storage areas were on the same level as our bedrooms.  My sister and I each had a door at the back of our closet that led into the area where the air conditioner and/or furnace were kept.  I'm fuzzy on what was actually up there, as all I remember were the giant pliable tubes that the air was forced through because we had to climb over them.  By entering through one closet door, a person could reach the other closet door undetected.  This allowed a person (me) to jump out of the closet in the room of the other, without having to enter through the bedroom door.  In case you didn't know, "Scaring the Pants off your Younger Sister," is a great game to play when you're young.

     I don't remember if we actually pretended or looked for Narnia in these places, but I know I decided that the area behind my closet would be the perfect place to hide if our house was attacked by murderers or robbers (I blame this fear I had on the show, "Unsolved Mysteries," that my dad watched and thus I watched).

     We also had tiny doors in our bedrooms that led into additional storage.  My secret closet wasn't used for much besides storage of our Christmas ornaments and various things my dad kept from his childhood that he wouldn't allow my mom to throw out.  But my sister turned hers into a clubhouse of sorts with mattresses and blankets and some old furniture used as a wall for additional privacy (as if any adult would enter the tiny spider-ridden wedge-shaped room in which anyone over four feet tall would have to walk around folded nearly in two).  She spent a lot of time in there with her friends and I only went in there when it was just the two of us.  By this time, I was twelve or thirteen and had my own occupations and didn't have time for secret clubhouses and the like.

     I digressed a little from the title of my blog, but here it is:  Sometimes it's necessary to believe in a world that you can enter through the back of your closet, where animals talk and you can be queen, and to remember a time when you had nothing better to do than hide in your sister's closet and jump out, screaming, "RAHHHHH!"