It’s always sad to drive away from our little cabin at Fox Lake. In fact, as soon as I leave I’m already wishing I was back. I wish I was there right now! Closing the shutters, snapping the padlocks shut. Putting the deck chairs away, closing the heavy home made wooden front door – a door that looks like it belongs on the front of a castle or fortress with it’s thick wood slabs and wrought iron hinges; and then, reluctantly, one last stroll down the dock to gaze north and then south.
Going to the lake feels like a ritual. We are there for several days each week of the entire summer. Kelly goes for several weekends throughout the winter, leaving me at the town house to work on my various dance projects. In the summer, when I am travelling back and forth, the drive is so familiar that I know where I am by the feel of the road under the tires. When we finally arrive it is almost like a surprise – we’re here already? My insides smile as we park at the top of the drive. Kelly gets out to unlock the chain across the driveway, and I look down the long slope and see the lake at the foot of it. I watch for the first glimpse of the cabin roof as we descend through the trees. Always a relief and thrill at the same time at the first glimpse of the green tar-paper roof, and then the cedar siding around the bedroom window. The outhouse, cute as only an outhouse can be, the mowed lawn that is more gravel than lawn, the shed with the broken antlers and crooked wooden wind chime nailed to the peak – then the porch and the brick oven and the dock. Home.
When I first enter, I stand in the middle of the room and just breathe. I feel a sensation like water pouring through me. Starting at my head, stress and tension flood down and out through the soles of my feet. I feel instantly lighter, fresher. Most of the time I don’t do anything at all when we are at the lake. I always take a box of work to do…dances to choreograph, lesson plans, whatever. What I actually end up doing, though, is reading and gazing at the view, and maybe some knitting and stitching. I have a dream of getting a treadle sewing machine and setting it up at the cabin. We don’t have electricity, so a treadle would be a requirement. I visualize myself sewing quilts and summer dresses.
Home is where the heart is, and my heart lives at Fox Lake. I wish I was at the lake right now. I really do.
