Small Spaces

by Claire Schomp


The book feels light now, but it seemed so heavy then with its tiny, dense words crammed closely together as if the writer had too much to say, too few pages in which to say it all. Here were tightly squeezed stories, compressed and barely contained by the thin, aged pages—yellowing even then.

Now, I rub my fingers along the book’s edge, the cover torn here at the bottom, softened over the years like the knuckles on my mother’s hands, worn with the wear of an eager reader’s touch. Rabbits pose in the picture, but they are not childlike: no animated Bugs Bunny or big-toothed floppy ears here. These rabbits are stoic, poised, quivering creatures—worlds away from the pictures in the books I was used to, but so familiar to my own wood-wedded eyes. I’d seen these rabbits before in wet, grassy fields behind our schoolhouse, among springtime primrose clusters and jolly, oversized daisies.

Opening the cover, I see my name, carefully penned by a younger girl who, as one of eight children, was perhaps too conscious of the need for ownership: the need to claim this book, this piece of furniture that had been in the house for years, as her own—as if, somehow, the reading made it so.

I look at the title printed neatly below my name, and this Watership Down reminds me of our own loftily named Spring Grotto: a dewy, deep, muddy place where we forged hidden trails along with the rabbits, frogs, foxes, and perhaps even a curious dog or two. It was our place, then, where adults were not allowed. Our place to test wills and play at making house: the spreading of sticks, flowers, and mudpies; the building of bridges and digging of holes; the drinking of icy water as it sprung from the earth.

That was our time, though it was mostly spent looking ahead. The girl I was then read this book and began to enter a more conscious adulthood. Rabbit warrens took her through more than adventure and daring escapes; they brought her closer to the pleasures of reading and writing, of building with words and playing with ideas.

Now, holding the book, with its pages falling loose, I am transported back to once more troop through long damp grasses, towering as tall as my neck. I separate them carefully, feeling the spray on my face. I am searching for rabbits, but they’ve all run away. I close my eyes and listen to the birds, the insects, and the sounds of my siblings laughing nearby. I am able, now, to sink into this space—and enjoy the feeling of smallness that it lends.