Below your cracked window red raspberries climb;
A hornet's nest hangs from a beam;
Your rafters are scribbled with adage and rhyme,
And dimmed with tobacco and dream.
"Each day has its laugh", and "Don't worry, just work".
Such mottoes reproachfully shine.
Old calendars dangle -- what memories lurk
About you, dear cabin of mine!
A hornet's nest hangs from a beam;
Your rafters are scribbled with adage and rhyme,
And dimmed with tobacco and dream.
"Each day has its laugh", and "Don't worry, just work".
Such mottoes reproachfully shine.
Old calendars dangle -- what memories lurk
About you, dear cabin of mine!
~Robert Service
Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of a realization of a dream for us. After many, many years of high-hoped searching and heartbreaking disappointment, we were blessed with a beautiful piece of property in a quiet, rural community. Our first three years here were spent first visiting and then living in a small cabin in the woods, a place which had existed here since the year Bo and I first began dating in 1989. It was charming in the fact that our luxury accomodations didn't include electricity, telephone, indoor toilet or indoor bath. It did include Amish voices that rose up from the valley during their bi-weekly Sunday morning singing, birds of all kinds that accepted our invitation to our half-dozen feeders, a beautiful tree-lined trail which provided hours of simple fun for our children who would scurry up the branches and light there with a book or an awed expression, a mature trumpet vine where Mother Robin would build her nest and lay her fragile blue eggs beneath the bedroom window, and midnight stars that were enough to bring tears to my eyes during my midnight trips to the outhouse. Our Little House in the Big Woods provided a haven for us, an escape from the busyness that had been our lives in the suburbs, and even the birthplace for our youngest daughter, The Baby.
The cabin, which hovers on stilts in the middle of a thicket of multiflora roses, raspberries and blackberries, is the reason why I go by the pen name of Thicket Dweller. The Thicket is rich with history, situated on the glacial divide, stomping grounds for notorious Indians, a former writer's retreat for my very dear friend and mentor, Penny B, who helped me along as I learned to appreciate and practice a simple life. She and her husband Richard spent literally months helping us find our way around our new home and our community. Penny welcomed us to the cabin by cleaning it from top to bottom, providing us with lanterns and lore, bunks and bedtime stories. Richard helped us begin our homestead with more knowledge and know-how than we could ever have hoped to have had on our own. Whenever I touch the walls of the cabin, walk the footpath to the blackberry patch, feel the fossil stones on the path beneath my feet, toss compost into the years-old compost bin or look out over the cow pasture through the maple trees, I honor Penny and Richard and the intent of that space.
When we built our house, in order to continue the ritual of honor and generosity that Penny and Richard had so effectively cultivated in us, the cabin became a peaceful retreat for myself and others who had been dealing with rough times, who needed to find a way out for long enough to collect their thoughts. Each time we had a visitor, we lovingly prepared it in anticipation of their stay. It wasn't just a retreat for them; it was therapy for me. To provide a weekend getaway for a young mother and her sons, a meditation place for a single woman going difficulty, or for relatives who needed a stopping place along their sojourn fed my spirit.
For the past twenty months, the cabin has been occupied by a family in transition, and while I was very glad to have given them my sacred space while they needed it, I am also so very glad to have it back. In my anxiousness to share the cabin's simplicity with others, I'd ignored my intuition and my heart-knowledge and rushed into an arrangement which I now wonder if I should have. During those twenty months, the cabin called to me, but I resisted. I thought so many times about how Penny must have felt, how difficult imt must have been for her to give up her quiet place, how hard it must have been to stay away. But I did stay away, entering into that space that had become someone else's only a half-dozen times at most; once for a social visit, other times to give service, correct problems or right wrongs. I could only pray and trust that the history within those walls was working its magic on the sojourners as they traveled their own direction.
Yesterday, on our fifth anniversary, my family and I spent the day there, cleaning windows, scrubbing floors, moving furniture, wiping down walls, planting flowers, lighting candles. It was a cleaning I really, really needed, physically and emotionally. I learned a lot through the experience of being a reluctant landlord; I hadn't wanted to rent long-term, but people were in need. There are mistakes I will never make again, and there were lessons I learned about other people and myself that I wish I'd not have had to learn, but it all helped me to appreciate appreciative people, and to thank God for the blessings of my cabin even more, to treasure it for what it is and is meant to be--a simple, rustic retreat offering to pull me from the hustle and bustle of life, to slow me down, to fit me into it, not for me to contort it or make it fit me.
From now on, the Thicket Cottage is open for short stays only. It's here to be an inspiration to the itinerant musician; a safe-haven for the young pregnant mother; a celebration site for the homeschooled college student; the resting place for the overworked greenhouse owner; the solitude for my favorite mother-in-law; the laughing house for the friends of my daughters and sons; the secret place for me to gather with my husband, my children, my dogs; to gather berries on the path; to gather my thoughts, my words, my feelings.
And for you. If you can appreciate it for what it is; if your heart longs for simplicity, peace, primitive living, and seclusion, then you, my friend, are welcome here. Come as you are, and respect the Thicket. You'll leave a better person if you do.
The cabin, which hovers on stilts in the middle of a thicket of multiflora roses, raspberries and blackberries, is the reason why I go by the pen name of Thicket Dweller. The Thicket is rich with history, situated on the glacial divide, stomping grounds for notorious Indians, a former writer's retreat for my very dear friend and mentor, Penny B, who helped me along as I learned to appreciate and practice a simple life. She and her husband Richard spent literally months helping us find our way around our new home and our community. Penny welcomed us to the cabin by cleaning it from top to bottom, providing us with lanterns and lore, bunks and bedtime stories. Richard helped us begin our homestead with more knowledge and know-how than we could ever have hoped to have had on our own. Whenever I touch the walls of the cabin, walk the footpath to the blackberry patch, feel the fossil stones on the path beneath my feet, toss compost into the years-old compost bin or look out over the cow pasture through the maple trees, I honor Penny and Richard and the intent of that space.
When we built our house, in order to continue the ritual of honor and generosity that Penny and Richard had so effectively cultivated in us, the cabin became a peaceful retreat for myself and others who had been dealing with rough times, who needed to find a way out for long enough to collect their thoughts. Each time we had a visitor, we lovingly prepared it in anticipation of their stay. It wasn't just a retreat for them; it was therapy for me. To provide a weekend getaway for a young mother and her sons, a meditation place for a single woman going difficulty, or for relatives who needed a stopping place along their sojourn fed my spirit.
For the past twenty months, the cabin has been occupied by a family in transition, and while I was very glad to have given them my sacred space while they needed it, I am also so very glad to have it back. In my anxiousness to share the cabin's simplicity with others, I'd ignored my intuition and my heart-knowledge and rushed into an arrangement which I now wonder if I should have. During those twenty months, the cabin called to me, but I resisted. I thought so many times about how Penny must have felt, how difficult imt must have been for her to give up her quiet place, how hard it must have been to stay away. But I did stay away, entering into that space that had become someone else's only a half-dozen times at most; once for a social visit, other times to give service, correct problems or right wrongs. I could only pray and trust that the history within those walls was working its magic on the sojourners as they traveled their own direction.
Yesterday, on our fifth anniversary, my family and I spent the day there, cleaning windows, scrubbing floors, moving furniture, wiping down walls, planting flowers, lighting candles. It was a cleaning I really, really needed, physically and emotionally. I learned a lot through the experience of being a reluctant landlord; I hadn't wanted to rent long-term, but people were in need. There are mistakes I will never make again, and there were lessons I learned about other people and myself that I wish I'd not have had to learn, but it all helped me to appreciate appreciative people, and to thank God for the blessings of my cabin even more, to treasure it for what it is and is meant to be--a simple, rustic retreat offering to pull me from the hustle and bustle of life, to slow me down, to fit me into it, not for me to contort it or make it fit me.
From now on, the Thicket Cottage is open for short stays only. It's here to be an inspiration to the itinerant musician; a safe-haven for the young pregnant mother; a celebration site for the homeschooled college student; the resting place for the overworked greenhouse owner; the solitude for my favorite mother-in-law; the laughing house for the friends of my daughters and sons; the secret place for me to gather with my husband, my children, my dogs; to gather berries on the path; to gather my thoughts, my words, my feelings.
And for you. If you can appreciate it for what it is; if your heart longs for simplicity, peace, primitive living, and seclusion, then you, my friend, are welcome here. Come as you are, and respect the Thicket. You'll leave a better person if you do.
The photos below are of the cabin through the years. Enjoy!
