A Home Away From Home

One thing I have truly missed since moving out to California has been the yearly visits I used to make to our family cabin in Wisconsin while I was living just two and half hours away in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jorge and I would always go up at least once in the summertime to indulge in bonfires, warm swims in the lake, and 4th of July fireworks off the dock. Sometimes I joined family there for the holidays in the winter as well (when I wasn't flying back to Idaho) to enjoy the pristine frozen lake, snowy walks through the forest, and cozy conversations by the fireplace.

I am realizing now that I sometimes took the cabin for granted while I was living so close to it. I miss the peace of mind it provided, the relaxing warm atmosphere, the family gatherings, and the beautiful forest and lake. The sanctuary it provided was nourishment for my soul and so healthy for my well-being. I was reminded of this after reading a short vignette in a magazine sent to me by my cousin, Nadia, about a cabin by a lake:

 "We're not so different from elephants. We travel in groups, we prioritize family, and like the elephants of Sri Lanka, we migrate annually toward water. Every year during the dry season, these elephants congregate with their families on the shores of Minneriya Lake. Researchers have noted that here, by the lake, the elephants renew old friendships and play together. They eat and flirt and bathe and drink. They are lazy. They swim in the sun, and rest in the shade. Like us, they are social and ritualistic and proud. 

In many ways, our annual migration out of our urban lives to a familiar shore can be understood scientifically: the air is hot, the water is cool; the cities are smoggy, the country is fresh; human eye muscles are most relaxed when settled on the horizon line; swimming is physically redemptive and psychologically meditative; beer tastes better on a dock. Perhaps, though, there is much that can't be so systematically reduced. Were we to be observed the way elephants are, by researchers from a distance trying to better understand our peculiar habits, would they notice that we open up to each other when we spend a few days in a cabin? How conversation gets easier and relationships strengthen? Would they notice how lying on our backs on the dock at night reminds us of when we were kids? Would they notice that we fret less about what and when we are going to eat, but more regularly and eagerly gather around food? Would they notice that our tendencies change: that we read more, sleep more, fuss less over details?

At the lake we don't mind that the shower keeps breaking or that the stove never works properly--we have affection for the dumpy and rusty and rickety things because we associate them with last summer, with childhood, with feeling small and content in a big and slow-moving world. We love the lake partly because it is not our home. Like the elephants, we accept that our life cannot always be so idle, leisurely, and peaceful. We accept that we can't always play cards until 2 a.m., skinny dip under the stars, and live off avocado sandwiches and pickles. Yet, like the elephants during dry season, we indulge for a couple of weeks each year in this necessary luxury, and return to ordinary city life more at home and more alive."

From Kinfolk: A Guide for Small Gatherings (Vol. 4)