Writing a book like Cabin Lessons is like rummaging through an old box of papers in the basement. You start out looking for a birth certificate, but as you search through old photos, letters, report cards, and silhouette cutouts, you find dog-eared things that make you grin, crinkly things that make you sad, and dusty things that stir up long-forgotten stories. Pretty soon it’s two in the morning, you sit surrounded by this pile of faded memories, and you’ve become this kind of happy-sad Jell-O-ish thing.
Searching through a mildewed 12-by-12-inch box and writing a 6-by-8-inch book hold some common ground: Both distill life down to its essence. Both can throw an emotional punch. You’re forced to take memories that are inchoate, perhaps never put into words, and give them shape. And you can never get all the old stuff to fit back into the box; a few things linger — and that’s okay. We all get to write the narrative of our life whether we write it down or not. I’m grateful for the chance to have sparred with the past while writing this book.
Dick and Jean moved a few years ago. They bought a house on the fringes of Silver Bay; a place big enough for Dick to support his riding lawn mower habit but small enough so Jean didn’t feel as though she were running the Ponderosa. They finally had the time and resources to pursue a few well-earned dreams. They bought a whale of an RV and traveled the country. Dick bought a boat and built a woodworking shop. A little while passed, and Dick started needing oxygen and Jean started feeling a little foggy, so they moved to an assisted living place nearby. They started coasting a little. One Tuesday Dick drove to Two Harbors and traded in their ailing SUV for a more dependable vehicle. On Wednesday he made sure the lease on their apartment was good for another year. Jean was set. He died on Thursday.
When someone cuts a larger-than-life figure, he leaves a larger-than-life hole in your life when he exits. We miss Dick’s fish cakes, his Ole and Lena jokes, and the sound of his four-wheeler coming down the driveway. But mostly we miss his steadiness. I’ve changed careers, Kat’s business has had its ups and downs, our kids have scattered, we’ve had to wrestle down a few demons, grandkids have arrived on the scene, Kat’s mom died, but through it all, spending time with Dick every few weeks was like pulling into the calm waters of Crystal Bay during a storm. Ain’t that somethin’?
Building stuff can become a sort of a touchstone for your own mortality. I remember when carrying a sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood was a study in tranquility; now I grunt just toting a half-incher. Life sneaks up on you. One day you look in the mirror and see you’ve got wrinkly elbows. The next day you’ve got a little boulevard of hair growing in your ears. You start paying attention to those reverse mortgage ads on TV; I guess that’s just how it’s gonna go down.
A lot of waves have belly-flopped into the thumper hole since we built Oma Tupa. The cabin hasn’t changed much — that “When it’s ninety percent done, it’s done” maxim holds a lot of water; maybe we’re at ninety-one-and-a-half percent now — but other things have changed.
The land has changed some. The thumper hole is 3/10,000ths of an inch deeper. Erosion keeps pecking away at the cliffs — an optimist might say it’s less land to weed-whack, but I’d be more comfortable with a ceasefire. An ice storm hit one May when the birches were leafed out. Birches tend to be short-lived anyway, but in just a few hours half the trees took a knee and the other half became distorted in strange yet wonderful ways. Some branches were whiplashed into 360-degree loops and zigzags; some trunks were folded into right angles. On the bright side, one day I’ll harvest these misfits to create a chair, and people will ask, “How the hell did he do that?”
As much as we feel secure in our cabin, we’re surrounded by uncertainty. The lot to one side sold. It’s zoned Resort Commercial. One day I ran across surveyors staking out a spot for what they said was going to be a B&B, but no dozers yet.
On our other side sit forty acres of state land, its future unknowable and uncontrollable.
The bike trail, which weaves and bobs between the lake and Highway 61, from Two Harbors up to Grand Marais, will pass by — or cut through — our land someday, but “someday” has yet to come. A “kayak highway” is being established along the shoreline. The state-owned land next to us is a designated camping spot, but it’s rarely used; in a busy year two tents get pitched.
So for now, we sit and cherish.
Kat and I have been working with the Mission Tanzania group from our church, helping build a secondary school and establish a tree farm in Central Tanzania. After working there, we realize Oma Tupa, by any standards, isn’t small, but palatial; isn’t simple, but elaborate; that our water system isn’t primitive, but a privilege. We complain a whole lot less about — well — everything.
The quaintness, closeness, and easy maintenance of a small cabin has served us well. But now — when we add up kids, spouses, and enough grandkids to form a small scrum — the census has doubled. A cabin’s role is to promote intimacy, not privacy, but at some point intimacy can sort of sneak into chaos. You can only pile dishes so high in the sink or stack so many suitcases in the entry. A small cabin is romantic, but get too many people, and romance of any kind is difficult.
We’ve started doodling ways of creating more space. It could be as simple as erecting a big canvas army surplus tent on a platform. Or putting a basement under the cabin (which would put a final finality to the leaning post issue). Or maybe we’d tack a small structure to the side of the cabin. Kat keeps clipping out pictures of bunkhouse rooms from Martha Stewart Living magazines, and they do look fun. I can see how a space like that could work the cabin DNA into our kids and grandkids. Whatever we do, we’ll keep the same feel — it will just be a larger same feel.
One day while I am at the store and Kat is out yanking weeds, an Italian-made convertible rumbles down the driveway, oil pan tempting fate. The dapper driver — also Italian made — and the blonde in the passenger seat — maybe California made — get out and stretch.
“This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” he exalts, stretching and feeling most at home. His companion agrees.
“Yes, we love it here,” Kat explains.
They walk around, then turn to Kat.
“We love it more. How much do you want for it?”
“Thank you, but it’s not for sale.”
“Just name your price. Everything has a price,” he counters. But Kat just smiles.
Ain’t that somethin’?
Oma Tupa has become part of Kat and me. We’re neither tourists nor residents in our Lake Superior abode — we are cabin-ites. We don’t do the thirty-mile-per-hour, neck-craning tourist thing as we poke up Highway 61, nor do we take the antsy-pants pass-everything-in-sight locals approach. We know the people at Julie’s Hardware well enough to talk about the weather but not well enough to talk about our kids. We’re not starstruck by the lake, nor do we take it for granted. We don’t stop to pick birch branches by the side of the road, but if there’s a full moon over Superior as we drive up at night, we still pull over in wonder.
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Oma tupa, oma lupa.
(One’s cabin, one’s freedom.)