Free Zones – in Praise of Basements!

Spaces where we can relax as we explore our own minds and work toward goals that are important to us are vital for our mental health.

In “In Praise of Unfinished Basements,” Brady Brickner-Wood (2022, The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/magazine/creativity-basement.html) explores the psychological benefits of being able to spend time in storeroom-like unfinished basements.  Speaking of spending time in their parents’ basement on trips home they share that “I can still spend hours there alone, reading and writing until my eyes shut. Even now, entering the basement makes me feel like I am descending into parts of my mind that I didn’t know existed.” The writer has many positive things to say about the basement as a “mutable, adaptable” space, “a place where life was more than what it seemed and our [their friend group’s] messy thoughts wound their way toward purpose. . . . As a writer, I try to recreate this alchemy in my work spaces. . . . I still make use of what the basement taught me: I imagine myself into an elsewhere, where reality softens and my creative potential helps me explore what remains unknown.”