We drove 3 hours south for two nights in a cottage in the woods and took our 4 year old velvet black cat Misha,,, it was her first long car ride and stay-away. She loved it.

Here is Lady’s description of our jaunt.

Lake Hope

We opened the door to unwrap the cabin with its better-than-the-pictures golden floors abutting wood trim abutting wood paneling rising to meet exposed rafters and beams. We unpacked the windows from their unexpectedly high quality horizontal blinds.
I opened all the doors to see what I could see, plurality of closets an invitation to a longer stay.

I quick took a lone journey in the car through curlicue roads to find logs on private property from a fit man named Bubba who had chickens and aspired to own goats and bees. “Bees and chickens get along,” I told him. I handed him a twenty and said, “Thank you, I appreciate it,” without even thinking about the words “I appreciate it” until after, a newly picked up mannerism of mine. Logs and spiders rolled in the folded down back of our trunk.

From the car I carried and spread our brown box of kitchen stuff on the table like some writing from the 70s. The kitchen was with what was deemed necessary plus a couple extras. For instance, a colander (necessary), a full set of four plates, bowls, cups, silverware. The luxury of a corkscrew for wine.

Thankful for a full kitchen, I made salad the first night. I made salad the second night, too. “Our salad was good,” I said. “I think the goat cheese, red onions and apples had synergy.”

“Original synergy?” He asked.

Our bedroom smelled deliciously of bleached blankets. The bed tall and soft. Dirt from the day on the smooth hardwood floor tasted by my toes. A large framed print of Malabar Farm.

Like what made memories for me when I was a sweaty mosquito-bitten kid, I wondered if we would have hard water, softened water or water that tastes like nothing – like a broom in which closet.

I waited for bed on the vinyl sofa in front of the fire, the flames like little sprites pounding Bubba’s logs with their hands. We could talk on the couch. I lay down with my legs over his, and his on the hassock. We could play cards and talk in the future, I decided.

A dog barked come twilight’s poignant stirring with other campers and their far off breathy exclamations. Blue turned the corner to deep blue against the filigree of the canopy, the blue only skies make. The cat traveled black through flickering projections of firelight. I waited until night was black on black, indiscernible.

A curtain fell into magic night. Unwillingly leaving wakefulness, I felt the lamp around the corner of satin steel finishes and clouded glass with pull chains for easy finding, modern, clean but timeless.

The blankets smelled deliciously of crisp bleach. The bed tall and soft. The bed against the window, inches away, which I left open for the crickets and the birds. I needed another blanket but I held the smooth skin of his back.

Oaks rained acorns in knocking ones or flurries that poured from the roof onto the cool dirt of the outside floor, its grass, twigs, ash and more acorns, some with caps on, some lost.

In the bathroom come showertime, things well done. Sturdy medicine mirror inset into the wall which when opened all inside satin metal shelving deep enough to hold rolls of toilet paper. Complimentary soap and fresh towels laid out for scrubbing. The only thing worn in the cabin the shower with assorted stains in which my heart celebrated that other people share the joy of this cabin. It furnished hot water, strong and plenty and savored.

Coffee quickened a speculation of ground that could be covered today, the lake seen, or horses ridden, a path walked short or long. I read and re-read the glossy state park pamphlet. But there were chairs and sofa in the main room for interior moments. Chairs in the kitchen and a small wooden table for drinking coffee silently. Chairs and adirondack chairs on the deck for mid-day hours. Chairs outside around back circling the fire pit if the day were to migrate to there.

A mild depression mid-day that we could not stay so long. I played hide and seek sitting behind the slats of the closet. Even I could not hear my breathing.

“Where’s my wifey?” He walked across the groan of floor, not knowing I was playing. I gave myself up when I heard him make to put shoes on.

The cat coiled on the bleach sheets by the cool bedroom screen. Later uncurled awake there, she watched past the window to crows playing in the pixelated green impressionist painting.

I’d light nag champa incense by the fire to thank the household god, the cabin god, the camp god. The god of time we make, a comfortable hollow suspended a few days from the river of aspiration.

Lady K, 9.19.2017