Two medium-sized trees grew in our front yard, spaced just right for a blanket tent. My brother and I asked our parents for the materials to make it with.
Mom gave us two old blankets. One became the tent walls, and the other was the soft floor inside.
Dad gave us some rope to suspend the tent from and a few bricks to hold the sides down.
At fifteen, Monty didn’t spend much time in it. He was more interested in putting it up. But at eleven, it felt like my very own little sanctuary. I spent a lot of time inside it that summer.
I still remember the scent of those sun-warmed blankets—clean, and smelling like fresh air, the way clothes do when they’ve dried on a clothesline. Sometimes I would press my nose to the fabric and breathe in deeply, just to enjoy it.
Penny, my little Pekingese dog, was mostly black with white tips on her paws. She would curl up beside me in the tent, completely trusting. She was my shadow, my comfort, and my very own small guardian of that blanket tent.
Often, I took a book into the tent with me, my imagination taking me to faraway places while I read. More than once, I drifted off to sleep there, lulled by the heat, the clean smell, and the quiet music of summer, the story blurring into the sounds of the afternoon.
I appreciate those summer days just as much now as I did then.
