Wonderland

There are a few things that can immediately snap me back to being 7 years old at 270 Bahr Dr. One of them is when my room (or, I guess, my house, now) is what my mother called "Wonderland."
Wonderland means it's not just tided but CLEAN. Incredibly clean. Like: bookshelf organized, clothes folded in drawers, bed made, carpet vacummed, desk drawer's meticulous. When the bottom of your closet holds nothing but nicely lined up pairs of shoes.
My mental image of my childhood bedroom Wonderland Clean is always of it at night, after dinner. (This probably because getting my room to Wonderland Clean took an entire day...) I'd come back to my room and eaaaase the door open ever so slowly, and stand in the doorway to look at my room sparkle by the light of my reading lamp. I always had a reading lamp in my room, even before I could really sit up in bed and read on my own, because my parents read to me. And when your room was Wonderland Clean, there was no chance you'd (or, really, my father) twist an ankle on a misplaced toy. So you could move about just by the light of the reading lamp.
I liked to set just one thing out when my room was Wonderland, whether it was a book or a toy or a dress I'd redicovered that day, buried in my piles of laundry that I wanted to wear tomorrow. Having the one thing out seemed to announce that everything else wasn't out. Like you would notice, "Oh look at how clean this room is! There is only one stuffed animal on that bed!"

Wonderland Clean is hard to come by when my life is as busy and full as it is now, and is often. When I feel like I need to be home but can't afford the Wonderland Clean, I go for something similar.
Tonight, I came got home around 12:15p. The house was dark, the jack-o-lanterns's candles already burned out on the porch. I've had an awful day and I knew that I need to sleep. Before that though, I quietly put my dirty clothes in the hamper, tided my dresser and re-made my bed. I hung all my jewelry up on their hooks and took out my bathroom trash. Then I took a shower and put on clean pajamas, right out of the drawer. I turned down my bed and put lotion on, I repainted my toe nails. I turned off my overhead light.
I may be poor and I may be tired and I may be totally unsure of a lot of things in my life but I do know this: when I am a clean body in clean pajamas nestled in clean sheets in a clean room lit only by a reading lamp, I feel safe.