I have to admit I was quite awed. I think shocked would be a better term. My wife’s sister, Jeanne, told me to go down to the hall closet where there was a door that led to the garage. We were going to visit my mother-in-law at the hospital and to save some time we decided to meet in the garage. It must have been a few minutes before I came to the conclusion that the door actually did exist. It was only three feet high. The doorknob, a simple wooden disc, was only one foot off the ground. I reached down and opened the door. Being the size I am I started to doubt that I had the capacity to crawl through such a small space. As I was squeezing through I closed my eyes and allowed my mind’s eye to take control of my thoughts and my reality.

Looking up I no longer saw a closet wall. I now saw a giant old forest tree with its rambling bark swirling its way up the trunk of a tree that was too tall to see its top. The air no longer had the scent of a home that was tightly closed over the winter months. It now had the smell of spring by the ocean. It had the odor of what I always thought the air should smell like. Looking down at the door I wondered if I dared to shut it. Could it be a passage to a point of my consciousness I never dared to go. I hoped so. I closed the door.

As the freshness of the air changed so did the light. It became a white luminescence yet not the type of brightness that hurt your eyes. This kind of light made one feel exhilarated and alive. All feelings of exhaustion or lethargy that I had before I stepped through that door were swept away and replaced by a feeling of adventure. The kind of ecstatic feeling you took for granted when you were young. I peered through my new environment but could see nothing but the light. I knew I had to continue in order to become a part of it.

As I passed further away from the door the first thing I did was bump my head on something that I did not see. I heard someone in the background ask me how that felt. I quickly turned to see who it was and to my surprise it was I. I was looking at myself with a queer expression on my face thinking why I would ever attempt to continue to go through a place I knew only could exist in my mind.  I then turned to continue my journey.