Cabin Journal

Learning to Share

About a month ago, I was surprised to find a “for sale” sign on the Bill Waite cabin, which practically sits in my front yard (right). The owner told me a year ago he planned to sell it, so I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I had lulled myself into a belief that maybe he had changed his mind or forgotten.

 

I’ve spent more than two years enjoying the view of the cabin, named for its original owner, while sitting at my laptop. I’ve photographed it in every season, so it’s become an icon, as much a part of my landscape as Mount Meeker or the three large ponderosas that anchor my front yard. The cabin has framed snowstorms, deep red sunsets, and the last light of day bathing the front of the house.

 

Since I’ve owned my place, the Bill Waite cabin has been empty, so it seems more than anything a

rustic fixture in my landscape: with its peeled log exterior, its metal roof and stovepipe chimney, its red-painted door. I even love the “decorations” on the front of the cabin:  a waffle iron hanging from antlers above the door(left), an old thermometer and bed pan.  I love the two plain wooden chairs, slightly askew, which have been there so long they’ve sunk into the ground. On the ponderosa tree in front hangs a cowboy boot turned into a bird house (below). The small cabin (432 square feet) forms a perfect rectangle that sits on a small rise, as if set up to be properly displayed as a rustic piece of art.  

 

When I realized that my view was threatened, my first impulse was to think about using my retirement money to buy the property. That way I wouldn’t have to contend with someone who might not share my feelings about this small slice of the world, might try to cut the tall grasses down, be noisy, own an ATV, or have TV or loud music going. The cabin had once been rented to a family, and I thought about children running around, making a lot of noise that would disturb my tranquility.  

 

But buying the property would mean taking money from my retirement savings, and because the property has no septic system, the county would likely require one, which would be a huge cost.

 

And  then there was another part of me, maybe the side that I’ve nurtured the two years I’ve had this place, that had an inkling that life was full of new experiences and that trying to keep everything the same was futile and useless.  Maybe I could be open to whatever might happen: a party of hunters having wild parties next door? I think I could handle it if it wasn’t every night. A family with kids playing in my front yard? They probably enjoy the ground squirrels as much as I do. A recluse who stuck his head out the door to check the weather? Even better. A fellow naturalist and book reader? Best of all.

 

I’ll  just wait and see.

Meandering with the Creek

A friend and I went to Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park last week to visit the creek, which meanders through the valley in a slow, sinuous curve. It’s bordered by tall green grasses and purple asters, yellow sunflowers and the white giant angelica (below), which towers a foot or two above the highest grasses, as if floating above the rest of the world. To the west is the dark cirque of high mountains.

 

While we meandered along with the river, a family nearby was crouched in the grasses. “Look at the elk,” the man yelled to me, pointing to a herd that was making its way across the valley. A line of cars had stopped on the road, and people were walking into the field to take pictures and get as close as possible to these magnificent creatures.  And they were a beautiful sight, their coats a tawny brown in the late afternoon light among the golden fields.

 

However, I could see elk anytime of the year here. (And, in fact, in winter, they will be browsing among the motels and homes all over Estes Park.) But the river would only be in this luxurious state for another few weeks. Soon, the flowers will die and the grasses turn brown. And, in another month or so, ice will start forming along the edges of the river.

 

There wasn’t much time left to absorb each twist of the river. At times the water skims over a layer of rocks, making a sweet, contented sound, before it forms a deep pool.  It’s in these pools the trout hang out, along the edges where they’re less likely to be seen. When I come close to the edge, they dart out from their safe harbors. The way they blend in with the water, they’re almost ethereal presences, so you’re not sure if you’re looking at the flow of the water or the fish.

 

Around the next curve, water sluices around a large boulder that breaks the water’s path. The glossy ripples make the partly submerged boulder seem almost dreamy, as if the water was breaking up its hardness, the granular reds and browns fracturing—not as solid as you think a boulder should be.

 

In some places, the force of the river has piled up small beaches of soft sand, and on this warm day, it’s inviting, so I take off my shoes and wade into the water. Standing in the creek provides a whole different perspective than being on the shore. I’m now part of the stream, composed of recent snowmelt, rocks and stones brought down from higher up the valley and sand from decomposed rocks, glinting with gold mica. The water tugs insistently at my feet.

 

In the high grasses, the huge antlers of an elk protrude. It’s deep in the meadow, grazing without even having to stand up. As the day gets later, swallows emerge, crossing back and forth above the river, sometimes almost skimming on the water. While the elk move farther down the valley and a coyote zig-zags across the hillside, clouds start to move across the high peaks.  It’s late summer, a warm sunny day that makes it easy to get lulled into thinking this lushness and plenitude will never end.

 

Driving back, we stopped to photograph the elk, and I overheard someone saying that they looked angelic. I knew what he meant, because the scene looked hallowed, pastoral, a landscape you want to preserve forever, a painting you can hang on your wall, because you know that perfection has been reached in the natural world and soon it will start slipping toward fall and winter.

 

Close Encounters of the Best Kind

 In June, at Cub Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, I was sitting by the side of the lily-covered lake when I heard thrashing in the woods. It sounded like a big animal, maybe a bear or elk, although elk don’t usually hang out among the trees. I certainly wasn’t expecting a moose, which are mainly seen on the west side of the park, although I saw a moose wandering in the woods by my cabin about a month ago.

 

But there it was—in all its ungainly glory, emerging from the trees and running into the lake, kicking up its legs and splashing water everywhere, like a kid. As I watched, amazed, from the other side of the lake, it repeated its romp several times, as if it had nothing better to do than enjoy itself and this lake.

 

  And then it started swimming across the lake, heading to where I was standing. Because I know moose can be belligerent, I started looking for a tree to hide behind, especially as it got closer. But when it was about 20 feet away, it must have smelled me and veered off toward the other end of the lake, where it emerged wet, shaking itself.

 

In her new CD, Unconditional Confidence, Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron talks about animals as being wake-up calls in our lives. She talks about walking near her abbey in Nova Scotia, her head full of thoughts, when she heard the ravens  and looked up to see the whole of the Pacific Ocean in front of her.

 

That moose definitely woke me up, just like the bear that approached the cabin one night at dusk, heading straight for the front door, which was open. I jumped from the couch, not sure what appropriate action to take, but, like the moose, the bear must have smelled something human, must still have carried some fear or wariness of humans, and turned in the other direction.

 

I’ve had some amazing animal encounters this year. In May, a friend and I were hiking on one of the Boulder mountain trails and saw a bobcat on the ground, almost blending in with the foliage, not more than 10 feet away from us. What’s more, it didn’t run away immediately, intent on something on the ground, perhaps an animal it had caught. I’ve only seen a bobcat once before in the wild, and that was, strangely, in an Estes Park subdivision last year, walking along the road.

 

Two weeks ago, a goshawk landed on my neighbor’s fence post, which I noticed because of the raucous calling of the jays and crows. Sightings are rare because goshawks have the unusual ability to fly among the trees and thus blend into the landscape. That same week, a hike up to Pawnee Pass brought me almost face to face with two marmots (one pictured above), which exhibited almost no fear of me, or maybe they were just too comfortable basking on the rocks in the sun to move when I walked by.

I feel lucky about every encounter with wildlife. To me, wild animals represent something from another world, an alternate universe, where the activities that make up our days—working at our computers, driving in our cars, watching TV—have no meaning for them, and their world—having to find food every day or else starve to death—is so far from our existence we might as well be on separate continents. So when we brush against the world of wild animals, we are touching a world that no longer exists for most humans.

 

Almost more than the moose, the huge herds of elk in the park, the deer and bear that wander by my cabin at dusk, I enjoy the ground squirrels. Outside my window they perch on the fence, stretch out in languid positions, gaze soulfully into the distance, scratch themselves furiously and generally act as if the world belonged to them and they had nothing better to do than enjoy it. Not only do they entertain me, but they take me out of my own world. Just the wake-up call I need.

Chasing After Silence

After a week of spending time with my family in the Midwest, running around and visiting with siblings, parents and other relatives, I came back to Colorado needing to calm my mind, so I headed to my cabin.

 

Sometimes when I’m just starting out meditating, I can actually feel the texture of unsettledness, almost like an electric current that feels like I’m being zapped at a low level continuously.  How lucky then I am to have this place where the silence is almost complete, where I can open myself to this magnanimous space.  And I was fortunate last week to have a day where it rained most of the afternoon, so I could measure my breath by the soft and insistent sound, which has the effect of turning me inward.

 

Before it started raining, I sat on the back deck, and because I was motionless, life went on all around me: woodpeckers climbing up and down the trees, making their strange guttural cries; a ground squirrel digging in the dirt below me for bits of dried grass and pine needles, stuffing them in its cheek pouch and running under the porch where it presumably was making a nest (but for winter?—it’s too early!); and two ground squirrels coming up on the back porch to stare at me intently, as if trying to figure out what I was, then quickly losing interest to chase each other around the yard.

 

Later, when it started raining, a soft gentle rain, I sat inside the cabin and meditated—that struggle to stop all the endless thoughts. In between the thoughts, some peace and acceptance sneaks in. There is no one else around, no noise at all except for the rain hitting the metal chairs on the deck and the birds calling from the ponderosas.

 

 In an effort to catch my breath, to force it to slow down, I started thinking about how hard it is to live in the present and to experience one moment changing into the next. Could I catch that moment? —observe  how the day gets darker, then lighter as the clouds thicken  and disperse; how the rain speeds up, then slows down. With every breath the world changes, and I breathe to keep up with it, to not get left behind.