But What If

Drinking dawn from a jam jar.

Pine trees cradle the view in such a way that I feel both home and transported unto an existence that needs no home. At 5 a.m., I make coffee in the French press, light 3 tea candles with matches from a matchbook and arrange my stack of books for the day. The dog remembers the walk to the river yesterday morning and tries very hard to change the posture of my heart on the matter. I speak to her as if she is a child, even though she is elderly now, “I will take you, puppy, after I pray.”

Maps of Vermont and the study thereof.

Throughout the night, animals build empires in the ceiling and walls of this old cabin. I remember sleeping in the loft as a child, listening to bats make a life for themselves in the attic. And in Kenya, the rats would become as strong as humans, often sounding as if they were moving furniture or having a dance party. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether they are all trying to get in or get out.

This visit, the temporary way of life, this simplicity. There is no extra. Every item in the cabin serves at least one purpose and often, serves many. The pine floors and cedar walls are unfinished and rough-hewn. Open stairs to the loft have penciled trace-lines still marked on them from their birth. The screens on the windows are stapled around the frame and even when closed, the windows seem slightly ajar. A visitor's cabin, indeed. But what if.

The river rushes without ceasing within earshot of every step I take. This and other ways the flow is impossible to ignore.