Away | A Cabin In The Woods

Where the world could stay away for just a little while longer

The little cabin sat tucked away in the late summer foliage of the wild woods. When I arrived in the gathering dusk, only the highest of the mountain peaks glowed pink in the setting sun. The fat moon rose. Just beyond the front porch, a doe stepped quietly from the brush, nosed some blades of tender grass, then lifted her head, pricked her ears, and looked at me. We visited for a moment, she and I, then she quietly slipped way.

Stepping inside, I slid the wooden latch into place behind me on the thick wood door.

Over the span of the evening, a reel spooled out, a moving picture of the closing of the day. The plaid flannel on the bed, the tease of the night’s breeze at the curtained windows, the thrum of moth’s wings against the porch light. The pad of my own footfalls on the bare wood floor. Then, silence, a candle, lit and steady, now blown out, a tendril of smoke rising.

Morning dawned cool and clear. I was glad for warmth, for the flick and flare of the yellow flame through the glass stove door. I lit the candle, brewed some tea. I plumped my pillows and slid back into bed, my toes finding the warmth still holding between the flannel’s folds. There was work to be done, in this stop-over place, in this scrap of time between here and there, work I’d brought along, tucked into the woven handbag there, leaning against the wall near the rocking chair. I opened my book instead. A chapter or two, I thought, with my first cup of tea.

Loves, I confess, I never did do the work. This was the post I was supposed to have written while squirreled away in that cabin yesterday. But, as time ticked by, I sank deeper into the flannel, into my book, into the morning, pulling this precious handful of hours over me, tucking them under my chin.

The work could wait. The departure could be delayed. The world could stay away for just a little while longer.

I knew you’d understand.

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