Christmas in the Cabin

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. The Christmas I've longed for and dreamed of is about to become real! For years, the image of a warm fire, a fir tree strung with popcorn and cranberries inside a snow- bound cabin has been my vision of the perfect Christmas…and here it was--along with our first venture into winter camping!

We've travelled a little over four hours to get here, singing our way through the 50's, 60's and 70's as Sirius spun out each decade's hits. We'd started our careers in the mid 1960's and now in our 60's and retired, we were going to make up for some of the adventures we hadn't had time for when work and families had taken priority.

After crossing Michigan's "Big Mac" bridge over the Straits of Mackinac, an hour's drive further north brought us to the Canadian border with only a short wait at customs as most of the traffic was lined up on the other side waiting to enter the U.S. Thankfully, this border crossing wasn't as horrendous as the one we'd had New Year's morning last year entering the U.S. when the female customs official looked me, a Canadian citizen, straight in the eye, and said, "Make sure you don't overstay your welcome!" before slamming her window shut. Just one of a series of indignities we'd endured during our cross-border relationship.

But all that was forgotten as we entered Canada over the International Bridge and drove the last forty-five-minutes to the third bridge (it's no wonder we call our trips, "bridge-hopping") connecting us to the island fondly known by some as "the magic rock". We've spent time here during summers, but we've never ventured to stay over in the winter.

For so long we'd envied the owners of summer homes that line the shores of Lake Michigan as we passed by them on our summer drives and even those on this very island--and now we have one of our own.

Arriving at the cabin, just at dusk, I look beyond the driveway to see the outhouse up ahead at the edge of the trees, leaning a bit as usual, but thankfully, we don't have to use it. I shudder to think of the time-honored tradition of some hardier campers who bring the outhouse toilet seat inside to keep warm and them carry it with them on the snowy trek to their outdoor "facility", but no roughing it in the bush like that for us!

Well, there's no point sitting inside the car. Cold air started to seep in as soon as you turned off the engine. Trudging across the snow-covered deck, to the kitchen door at the far end, while you start unpacking the car, I give the bottom of the door a few kicks and hit it with my hip for good measure as I know it will be frozen shut.

I insert the key, turn it… and I'm inside. It's even colder in here than it is outside and there's no earthy fragrance of sun- warmed wood as there is in the summer--not surprising though, as the drapes across the windows prevent even the weak warmth of the wintery sun from penetrating.

After hitting the breaker for power, I flick the switch for the overhead kitchen lights and head straight for the woodstove where we always lay a fire with paper, kindling and wood before leaving in the fall, so it's ready to light---but not before checking that something hasn't nested down inside. Mice and even squirrels have been known to make their way down through the chimney flue to nest inside wood stoves for the winter. And oh, yes, I remember to make sure the damper is in the open position. There's nothing more exciting than the first fire of the season; after that you remember to open the damper--something we learned in our first season as we fled the smoke-filled room!

It's going to take a few hours to heat up these log walls, so we'll need to replenish the firewood from the pile outside. I'm always leery of snakes hiding in the outside log pile, but there's little chance of that in this cold. I'll let you do it though, just in case. You're the "Michigan Man" after all!

The fridge and microwave spring to life with a reassuring hum and ping as I plug them in. Drawing open the patio door drapes, I look over at the snow-covered shipping channel, where nothing moves on its frozen white expanse. It will be months yet before we hear the deep thrum-thrum of the lake boats passing by as they head up to Lake Superior. Some nights they're so strong, we can almost feel the vibrations of their powerful engines, but all is still and quiet now.

There's a barely perceptible glow of light from a few cabins on the other side--the U.S. side-- of the channel. "Look, Grimmski," I tease. "You don't need to feel homesick--there's your beloved country right across the channel."

The only other signs of life are the crisscrossing footprints of the deer that abound on the island. We'll have to remember to leave some popcorn and berries for them.

Remember the time you hung the curtain rod for these drapes? Stretching to the full height of your 6 foot 2 inches, arms holding the rod high above your head, your belt gave way and your pants slid down to your ankles. And there I stood doubled over in laughter with no phone or camera within reach!

Enough musing-- there's food and jugs of water to store away after checking the cupboards for mice droppings--none to be found thankfully, so plugging up all their portals of entry with steel wool seems to have worked.

There was that morning when you saw me with a broom and thought I was sweeping the floor. Sweeping at 6:30, are you kidding?! I was chasing a mouse around the living room trying to steer it outside, but it ran up the wall and over the rafters where it disappeared into a tiny gap where the wall and the vaulted ceiling meet, leading me right to another hole to plug!

Knowing that the mattress on the bed will be as frigid as the snow outside, you'll have to help me haul it out to rest by the fire to warm up. Otherwise, it'll be like sleeping on an ice floe. Maybe we'll even leave it here by the fire and sleep on the floor tonight snuggled under the duvet that I always take home with me in the fall so the mice don't dance all over it while we're gone. But then again, we're really not that hardy and besides, the uninsulated floor isn't going to warm up any time soon--not until the summer sun hits it.

Rolling up the blind of the bedroom window, everything in the "back 40" is as still as in the front, only bare branches and tree trunks in sharp profile against the snow....and then I see it!

"Grimmski, come quickly, the albino deer is in the yard! Shh, don't make a sound." We watch it pawing the snow for remnants of last summer's grass and then hesitating to taste the air. Can it sense our presence even from the outside? Almost as imperceptible as a ghostly apparition, it turns and disappears into the trees. "It's a sign, 'Grimmski'--a good one," I whisper in awe.

For you the most spiritual place on earth is by the gently trickling waters of a beautiful trout stream (and to you, all trout streams are beautiful.) But for me it's inside these four log walls, safely cocooned away from the outside world.

Remember how peaceful it is to sleep here? It's the deep darkness and even deeper silence here, and tonight, with the blanket of snow outside buffering the slightest sound, we'll be lulled once again into the depths of sleep pretty easily, I think.

You even told me that I was singing in my sleep one night. I was dreaming about some young girls laughing and running through a nearby field, maybe the ones who grew up in this cabin that their father had built. Each log along the walls has been trimmed and debarked by hand--their father's hand. It's hard to imagine this small cabin once being the permanent home to their family of five. Could it have been their spirits that came by for a visit that night? I've never sung in my sleep before, so it's possible…

Stanger things have happened here. There were those vibrations I felt sitting on the love seat in the corner by the stove that had me jumping up in alarm and later finding out about the earthquake far away in Montreal. Could this cabin be resting on a fault line of some kind?

But you know what the best part of our stay will be--the sauna! I'm forever grateful that the previous owners opted for an inside electric one instead of a wood-fired one outside like the neighbors have. No trekking outside through deep snow to heat up a sauna when we can just hit the switch and in a matter of minutes it'll be ready for us to bask in its steamy heat and then fall into a blissful sleep.

Oh, but before we succumb, we'll have to check for the "spirit animals" on the ceiling. There's always a fox or two, a bear to the left of them and if we squint hard enough, there's a rabbit in one corner. To other people they may be just knots in the wood, but to us they're the spirits of woodland creatures forever enshrined in the wood of their habitat.

But now with a pizza in the oven, we sit, still snuggled in our coats, feet up on the low table with mugs (yours the white speckled blue tin one) of hot chocolate, courtesy of the microwave, gazing into the fire as we wait for dinner. We even take a selfie or is it a "footsie" of our wool-stockinged feet warming in the fire's glow. Grinning widely, we toast each other. We've made it, we're actually here…and you don't even have to cut the grass…and begin to plan tomorrow's chores.

First on the list will be to snowshoe into the woods to find a small fir sapling to haul inside so it has a chance to defrost before we decorate it with the strings of popcorn and cranberries I've already made. Then we'll hang some lights from the rafters and dig out candles from the emergency cupboard.

We'll head back to the village to check out the wine store and then your favorite place--the grocery store--to buy those store-made sausages you love, always perfectly spiced and juicy. For Christmas Eve dinner? Why not? They'll be perfect with oven-roasted potatoes and the sauce I made with the left-over cranberries. I wonder if you'll dare to sneak up behind me like you do in other larger supermarkets, and kiss me when no one's looking? That'll give the villagers something to talk about--and I'll be kind of disappointed if you don't.

Wait… the cranberries…they're still in the back seat of the car! They'll freeze if left out overnight and make a mess of the popcorn they're strung with when they defrost. I jump up quickly to fetch them.

Coming back to the kitchen door with my large bag of popcorn and berry strings, I hesitate before stepping inside. I recognize the inside of my cabin, but the room before me is dark, empty and cold--bare walls and floors, no furnishings, only the woodstove standing black and cold against the far wall…and there's nobody here. Something is wrong …I feel like an intruder… a trespasser…I shouldn't be here…

My dream of Christmas in the Cabin was just that, an actual dream I quickly realize as I turn my head on the tear-dampened pillow to find the place next to me-- your place-- just as empty and cold as the cabin at the end of my dream. Nothing is left…you're gone, the cabin has been sold…and my dream of a winter stay evaporates.

You decided to leave in the midst of a surgery, heading for a distant trout stream, leaving me with a gnawing sense of loss and grief and the emptiness of unfulfilled longing overwhelms me again. Everything is gone, and I sometimes wonder if any of it was ever real…or was it all just something I dreamed?

I want a re-do of driving up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin at Christmas and this time make it a reality. Regrettably life doesn't work that way--we seldom get a second chance to realize a dream…and I'm left with Nora Jones' hauntingly evocative lyrics, "Come away with me in the night..." as a wistful reminder of what could have been.