My North Star.

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My inspiration is back. And it took nothing less than returning to the place that I spent my childhood - the place where anything was always possible - to feel at home again in my own body. Every now and then I travel back to my old home with a friend that has been in my life since I was 3 years old. We quietly peer into our old windows and talk about what our rooms once looked like. Sneak in between broken fence posts and sit in silence as we remember birthday parties, neighborhood fairs, chasing bunnies. Tip toe in the feild behind my old back yard and try to imagine ourselves back in that place, running through sprinklers and climbing up my old swing set. Then, I sit upon the stump of my oldest, most favorite tree. With warm, swelling eyes I try as hard as I can to transport myself back to when I was 5 years old and sitting in that very same spot {probably wishing to be older}. Yes, that tingling in my throat is back and I finally feel like what I have to say is worth putting into words.

I think that Laurel Lakes must have been magic. Maybe it still is. Because the spell of my childhood has kept me young and imaginitive and alive like nothing I have ever experienced since. As I sit here now, I am giggling about how I used to sit in my kitchen on the phone with my best friend. We would talk about how pizza tasted better when it was square-shaped and how much adult swim really did suck. An afternoon dancing in the tall, tall grass of my neighbors backyard suited us just fine. Or riding our bikes so fast that our hair stuck straight out or hiding from our bus driver under one of our friends decks or just pretending we were fairy princesses. Nothing mattered and time seemed to go on forever. Then one day I woke up, and I was twenty-something years old. But I still feel like that little girl, and I hope she stays inside of me forever.

And if I ever forget that she's there... I know my best friend will just know and we will return to that place and feel young again. We will eat ice cream and walk up and down our old street. Run as fast as we can to the park and spin around on the merry-go-round until we throw up. We will leave reality behind for a while and get lost in our imagination of what we once had and will forever share. Because it is really true, when Oscar Wilde said - We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.