I used to play in a den in the lane behind my house. It wasn’t really a den. It was just a space beneath a tree. But I made it my den.

The den was invisible to adults and to most other children, but it became something interesting to me through the power of my imagination.

The den was an inhospitable place, full of dirt and open to the rain. I made it better suited to my needs by placing straw on the ground as a carpet, and building a door out of sticks of wood and some string I found.

The den fed my imagination and gave meaning to my life as I played in it, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.

In a sense you could say that the den didn’t really exist. Nobody made it. It was just a space under a tree. It certainly had no discernible purpose, yet I imbued it with a purpose of my own.

Now that I’m an adult, I tend to think that the universe is just like my old den.

Originally published at Blog Blogger Bloggest.