Two days to go. The kids can hardly sleep. In 48 hours I should be damping down the wood stove for the night, carrying some sweaty kids into the loft for a deep Walden snooze under a snow-covered skylight. (The stove quickly turns the little winter cabin into a hothouse).
We’ll be tired. Tonight Mom and Rod called from Summerside to report that PEI was socked in today with 30 cm of snow. That means that my little driveway that snakes through the maples from the road past the spring to the cabin will be drifted over. I’m bringing snow shoes for Jasper and we’ll pick up a cheap sled with the groceries in Charlottetown after we arrive. I’m buying snow pants tomorrow. Mom and Rod reported that they’d slipped up to the cabin just yesterday as the snow began to fly, to cut a small spruce and some pine boughs for the weekend’s festivities. I get my love of the woods from my mother.
“Oh, Stuart, it was beautiful. Magical up there. The snow was fluttering down and the spring was running fast like a brook. The cabin is all nicely banked up with hay and is just waiting. Your Christmas lights are on.”
Christmas lights? Someone must have forgotten to turn off the outdoor lights when we left in August. Oops. That’d be me. Good thing they’re SLEDs.
I’m almost 40 years old, which makes me about half way through if I’m lucky. And I keep a little cabin in the woods at great expense 1400km away from where I live. It makes little economic sense to do this. It’s a pain in the butt to manage and maintain.
But I Love it. Love Love Love. My Walden is a place of wonder and I’m no more thankful for the rest of my busy life than I am when there and can see things in perspective. Perspective is something I often lack. But it doesn’t keep me up at night.
