The York Street Shed and New Beginnings
By: Laura Gallagher
Tags: Imagination, New Beginnings, Play, Grief, Hopes And Dreams

Photo Credit: Laura Gallagher

It’s the early morning hours before I move my company and after tossing and turning for a while, I decided to go to the kitchen for something to eat. I found myself in front of a warm fire with my toast and jam thinking about the old shed in the backyard at 312 York Street in the small town I grew up in, Warren, Illinois, population approximately 1,500.

What does the old shed have to do with the move? Quite a lot, actually.

When I was 8 years old, we moved from the country to a smaller house in a slightly bigger small town. We were all really excited even though life was about to change in some pretty significant ways. The house had 3 bedrooms and was in need of much but the dated kitchen had a spray hose in the sink. I thought this modern invention was magical and the highlight of the house. I’m not even kidding. My dad used to spray us with it when we would walk by the kitchen window outside or I would spray my sister or my dad would spray my mom but either way, we had fun with that silly spray hose. The house also had a couple of old storage sheds in the backyard and that’s what this story is about.

The sheds were made of wood, cobbled together and falling down. To my new friends in my neighborhood and my sister and myself though, this was where we created our own land of make-believe. We made up countless scenarios inside those old wooden sheds. We played everything from frontier land to “house”. We brought out plastic teacups and old kitchen items from the house. We made up stories. The neighborhood kids created pretend weapons to protect us from the bad guys. It was a wonderland of creativity and fun.

Some of the kids from the neighborhood!

This was all happening in the spring of the year. The grass was muddy and wet. Our socks and shoes were always soaked. This slowed down our play as kids would run home and change shoes or have to wait for them to dry out and return. This cut into our playtime. So our resourceful neighborhood crew took old boards and placed them in the grass building a makeshift plank to get to the backdoor of the garage and to slightly higher land. We had so much fun running across those planks.

One day I stepped on a nail though. I had a tetanus shot, bandaged it up and was back to business as usual but with a hole in my foot. To this day, I wonder, did I even have shoes on? It’s possible I didn’t or that it went through my sneakers. I’m certain my mom got yelled at by my dad for letting us do that to begin with. I’m also 100% certain my mom shrugged it off knowing how important play is. I loved that about my mother. She never lived in a box with lots of rules. She knew creativity and imagination were essential for a good life.

I was in the third grade when all of this happened. A third grade I had actually missed quite a lot of because they found a tumor behind my right eye that year. I had three surgeries to remove it. In the midst of all of this, we moved. I think the best thing about that year and my childhood up until that point was that I had a lot of free time to develop my imagination. When you’re a sick kid, a kid alone in a hospital bed or recovering at home, you spend a lot of time thinking, or at least I did. I couldn’t read or watch TV without it straining my eyes and making my head hurt so I spent a lot of time daydreaming. My mother would read to me and my imagination would take flight.

Which leads us back to the sheds in the backyard where we had so much fun. One day, I came home from school and they were gone. Torn down. Taken away. My 8-year-old self went through all of the stages of grief. I was angry, then sad and finally accepted the loss. I lamented to my mother. I didn’t understand. I was distraught.

My dad had gone to Spahn and Rose Lumber Yard and purchased a brand new shed. Inside it, he kept it ultra-organized with miscellaneous tools, the lawnmower, and some gardening equipment. Lost forever was our wonderland of adventure and fun though. He had no idea what he had done nor did he care. It was a job that needed to be done but to me, it was a great loss for my community of friends. We would find new lands to play in including the nearby draw bridge that covered the railroad tracks but there’s something about a very old tiny “house” in the spring of the year where the neighborhood kids would gather and make things happen together. The land of make-believe was forever gone.

I have always liked to be prepared for change and new experiences. I wasn’t a fan of surprises. My mom was a genius at this effort. She tried to do everything she could to make me feel safe in the world. I don’t remember her doing this as much before the surgeries but that was certainly a turning point. She didn’t want me to be afraid of what was going to happen. She told me I wouldn’t be able to see when I woke up from surgery. She told me about the hypo they would give me. She told me I could order whatever I wanted from the menu at the hospital. She said she would be there when I woke up. She prepared me so I wouldn’t be afraid.

This is one of those things more of us could make an effort at doing for others. It really is a precious gift to make another human feel safer in the world.

This is why, when I came home from school and found my own little slice of heaven gone, I felt so misunderstood and wronged. No one told me the change was coming and although in my father’s eyes (and likely everyone else in the neighborhood), it was a great improvement, all I saw was that my magical world had been torn down and taken away from me. It wasn’t just an old shed, it was an escape, a place where I came to life, where the community gathered and where friendships and adventures happened with ease.

This is one of the reasons I’m awake at 4 a.m. on the night before what will be a really long day. Although the building I’m moving my company into tomorrow isn’t as nice as the one I’m leaving, it reminds me of the 7 years my company, The Creative Company, spent at the Madison Enterprise Center. It wasn’t without its challenges but the big open space and the entrepreneurial buzz that filled the building were energizing to me. There was something about the high ceilings, the floor to ceiling chalkboards and the element of play that brought me to life.

Like my father, I wanted something nice and tidy which is why we moved in 2015 but I have to admit that for a season, it will be wonderful to go back to the community that welcomed us with open arms at the height of the recession in 2008. Our new, albeit temporary space, at Main Street Industries is a sister to the Madison Enterprise Center. We will be here for 14 months before returning to our previous location on West Washington Avenue where a brand new 5 story mixed-use building will be built from the ground up. For now, though, we’re returning to a community of entrepreneurs, of people making things, of high ceilings and room to roam. I’m so ready to go back for a while. I need a season of my imagination leading the way again. I need community, of a sense of wonder, of the smell of baked bread, hops and chocolate floating through the air and of people building their dreams.

You see, my mother passed away after a 3-week illness on January 4, 2019. She was 72 years young, my best friend and a world-class encourager. She led by example, only said two swear words her whole life and loved people unconditionally.

When she left this earth, I felt like a part of me died too. When grief sits with you and won’t depart, you also lose your ability to dream. Between loss and fear, there wasn’t much room for possibility, risk or even growth. So much so that even though I knew I had to move my company to make way for a brand new building at our current location, I delayed the decision as long as I could. Normally, I’m a “dive into the deep end” kind of person but this time, I asked far more questions. I held back. I waited. I drove my commercial real estate broker bananas. I kept waking up and walking through doors though, following my intuition, listening to my many wise counselors and three weeks ago, landed. I had 8 months but nothing felt right until it did. Sometimes you need to go back before you can go forward.

I am excited about the future again and I know my mother is, in her own way, very much right here with me. Just as she was when she was watching us play in the backyard on York Street and enjoying how much we were lost in the adventure.

My mother encouraged my imagination and my imagination has taken me places that were out of reach had it not been for that gift. She gave me permission to play. She also taught me to be brave and confident, like her. Even if, even when, even though.

By using our imaginations, we can dream up all kinds of ideas, solutions and be in awe of the wonder of it all. It seems as though some spaces are more conducive to that kind of thinking. It’s about the people though too. Like when I was 8 years old, you have to have friends who are willing to go on the adventure with you. They also need to buy-in. A wholehearted adventurer is so much fun to be with and far more interesting too. My team is so remarkable. I’m beyond thankful to work alongside these people and to have the clients and allies in this community we do.

Back to that old shed in the backyard on York Street, my dad saw a couple of old sheds that were falling down. I saw an adventure waiting to happen. Many people see what is and think that’s all there is. Some of us see what’s possible and then make it so. His vision and mine were not aligned but both worked.

I still think I had more fun though. It was messy. There was a certain amount of danger involved, especially with the wooden planks we made, but hours went by like minutes making it a great adventure from beginning to end.

Here’s to seeing the world through a different lens, one where all things are possible. Here’s to finding a tribe that will join you on great adventures into unknown lands. Here’s to using your imagination and making things happen. Here’s to building bridges in backyards with things others would throw away and using them to get from here to there. Here’s to embracing every precious moment of our lives knowing that somehow, it all fits together in the end.

I think even now I’m just playing in the backyard with my friends on a gorgeous spring day. We’re working hard and making things happen. We’re speaking words and ideas into being. The stakes are a whole lot higher now but aren’t we all in need of more play, more possibility and more joy? To do this in a community of people who share ideas and their lives with one another is what life is all about. Whether you’re 8 or 80. Duty, creativity, safety and hope are all essential to our well-being.

Tomorrow a new adventure takes flight. Where will we go? What will we build together? That story is still unfolding as this new chapter begins but one thing is for sure, I’m ready for the next adventure and I’m thankful. Our life experiences can work together for our good. Who were you as a child? What parts need to be revisited again? What makes you come alive? These are the questions that will lead to new beginnings and a life worth living.