Water view
Once upon a time I had a cabin, though it may have been a kindness to call it such. Shack. Shanty. Maybe hopeless? Most of my friends thought so.I had visited a friend there once, met the landowner, who remembered me. My friend eventually moved on and away, and I received a phone call asking me if I was interested in "the camp." I was.
So it came to pass that I had thirteen questionable windows with a lake view in a rustic (I am being kind here) cabin. I cleaned, cleaned again, whitewashed, and began to create a sanctuary for myself. A nook with a water view for my bed. A dining table by the window with a view of water's edge.
I rebuilt plumbing, created a working kitchen, added bookshelves everywhere and settled in for eight months of every year (it had no heat, no water in winter). My city apartment collected dust; the cabin was my heart and soul. That happened instantly, the moment I first turned the key in the door.
I would come home at night and swim in the cove in the moonlight, soothing after a high pressure day of breaking news, of always being "on." I would read books while curled up on my bed, watching raindrops race against the windows. I spent hours on my neighbors pontoon boat, simply floating around the lake, or anchored in the center. I never installed a phone there. Amenities were sparse.
But at night, away from the citybright, the sky filled with stars.
My mom "got it," this obsession with the shanty and the lake. My daughter "got it." But few of my friends did.
"It's old."
"It's decrepit." (Only on the outside now).
"How can you..."
But my needs are simple, simpler than most. Each morning I awoke and prepared a cup of coffee. I sat at that table by the window and watched an egret land beside my dock. Faithful to the minute. And for an hour each morning we breakfasted together, I sipping my brew and munching toast, she stepping lightly in the water's edge, picking and choosing her catch of the day.
In this small cluster of shanties at the top of a lake, surrounded by state forests and marshland, I felt my soul setting roots, tuning into rhythms the city can never know.
I too, though, reached that time to move on. It happens. A glitch in a 100 year old legal document scattered all seven occupants from all seven shanties in that cozy little wooded commune.
I miss that time at the lake. I miss the leaky roof and sagging floors and the water view. I miss the moonlight dancing across my pillow. I miss the solitude and the silence.
Most of all I miss the egret I had come to know so well.
Comments (1)
Lovely phrase! Reading this was a great start to my day. Thank you.