The Cabin

My family and I spent Independence Day at The Cabin up on Moscow Mountain. Lets just say that I wasn't feeling well, so around 6:00 PM or so I went and sat in my brother's truck.

I've always liked sitting in the bed of trucks, but I haven't done that for a long time. There's something so summery about sitting in the bed of a truck on a picnic blanket with a can of coke and a fun book. Especially when you're up in the mountains, with no cellphone service or electricity. You're completely cut off from the rest of the world, and it's just you and your thoughts and the truck. No interruptions, no distractions. You lay down and stare up at the sky through the opening in the canopy of the trees overhead. Birds fly over you occasionally, calling back and forth to one another. Somewhere down the hill below you you hear a wolf howling in the darkness of the trees. And off to the right you can hear the faint joyous laughter of my family.

It has been a long time since we have all been together, and we joy in each other's company. It may be the last time for some of us to all be together. My great aunts are old and feeble, but they still have that sparkle in their eyes and are ready to tell you stories about their childhood and have you laughing soon. I can hear them working their magic on my siblings and cousins, and their laughter floats to me as I lay on my back.

I close my eyes and simply listen. The world is a beautiful place, and often we don't take the time to see it and enjoy it. It changes rapidly, and if we're not watching, we'll miss things completely before they change.

The Cabin has always been a peaceful place for me, and although I haven't been there in years, it hasn't changed. The same swing sways slowly in the breeze off to my right. The zip line is there, waiting for my cousins and I to rediscover it. Kaiden and George have found the old rope swing and are tossing it back and forth to each other, laughing.

With no electricity, a lot of normal entertainments are eliminated. We have to keep ourselves entertained in the old fashioned way. Building forts with sticks; digging in the loose dirt with our hands, making roads for our little cars to drive around on; swinging on the swings; playing Trial; taking walks along the perimeter of the woods, trying not to step on in-ground bees' nests; dressing up sticks of wood for dolls; having sword fights with wooden shafts. Most kids would hate not having TV or radio or video games or a computer, but not us. We loved it. We've always loved it. Here we could escape the world and play games that no one else understood.

Laying on my back, watching the clouds roll by, and feeling so sick that I wanted to die, I thought of all these things. What a beautiful place this is. How much I've missed it since the last time I was here. I missed it and I didn't even know it. The sick feeling lessened as I thought about it. Even in the midst of sickness, I still felt safe. Guarded. I smiled to myself, and in my mind I said a prayer, so thankful to have come back. Who knows when I'll go back again after this, but for now, no matter how ill I feel, I am happy to be here.

Here everything is calm. Here everything is right.