The Way It Is

Our company last weekend said our life here at the cabin must be like camping all the time. Like camping as a fun thing, that is. I didn’t even know what to think about that. Because to us it’s not like camping at all. But I tried to compare. I really want to hear people’s first impressions of driving at a snail’s pace, literally, a mile back to our place on the road that almost isn’t a real road. And what happens to their sense of comfort and contentment after having an overnight here. I wonder if having hot and cold running water in the kitchen makes up for the outhouse, at all? I tried to think about the difference of stoking our hungry stoves to heat and cook by and simply having a thermostat turn up the heat or down with nobody paying the least bit of attention. That’s probably a really big and important difference to most folks. I guess it’s important to us too, only we thank God for wood heat and free cooking. Not that we don’t ever use the gas range, we do. How else can we get hot coffee first thing while the new fires take their time to get crackling in the morning?

The way it is, we could be content, except that outhouse. We actually don’t mind the outhouse. We mind the tramp through the cold, outside, at night. It’s not the way it’s going to stay. So all you dear company who can’t fathom off-grid living, please relax, don’t worry, we like the creature comforts and a beautiful home the same as you do. Maybe more so. We’ve thought about it more.

To be honest, the temporary shower room Elv put up outside is wonderful when it’s not too cold, but I have my sights set on a certain blue bathtub that’s been hiding in the weeds. When the bathroom next to our bedroom is done, I’m going to have a hot bath fit for royalty in a most beautiful bathroom ever, cabin style, notwithstanding. The way it is, is fine for now, but like every other woman, I’m looking forward to the nicety of a finished home, off grid, notwithstanding, again.

An advantage of settling into this method/pace of finishing is having the freedom to light up and decorate the top of the refrigerator with my own cabin style. (We need to remember when we install the light fixtures some day that that corner needs more light than what we have planned right now. ) It started with the radio though. I noticed one evening, that Susan had a radio on in the back ground. Yes, one of those small boom box radios that plug into the electricity. Yes, the kind with a silver antenna jauntily catching the news and music out of thin air. On the spot I was swept back to being a little girl visiting at Grandpa Skrivseths home in northern Minnesota. Comfort and warmth. The security of everything bring ok and as it should be, flooded over me. (I love memories, again.) And I thought, “I own a radio. It’s a CD player, but it’s a radio. I’m going to have it playing classical music and telling me the news and the weather just like old times.”

In the end, I had lovely ambience and music coming from the top of the refrigerator. The grey rainy day outside only served to make it perfect. I like it, just the way it is.