Contentment

January 26, 2018

It happened again. It’s been awhile, but when I stepped out of the car this afternoon, I wasn’t disappointed. Linda and I had picked up Mattie and Nathan from school; they had a half day, but their parents didn’t. After getting them from school, we had a small errand we had offered to run for Linda’s sister Mina and our brother in law Dennis. 

About thirty years ago, Dennis lived with his dog Bailey in a 15’ X 15’ log cabin in the woods. He had felled and prepared the trees and built it by hand. Inside and out, it all the conveniences a man could want, with an outside refrigerator made out of an old chest freezer in and out of which he kept a steady stream of spring water flowing via his hydraulic ram, thus keeping everything cold. Alongside one wall of the cabin was a cattle tank for a bathtub, toilet, sink, and a hot water tank. A wood stove for heat, table and chairs in the center, and his bed on the opposite side of the room, it was his hand built home, sweet home for a number of years. 

Dennis married Linda’s sister and decided she needed a proper house to live in, so he and I formed a partnership to buy timber from the state lands. He built himself a sawmill, and using his ancient tractors and bulldozer, cut down the trees, hauled them to his mill and began sawing them into proper building logs. He took the 6” X 6” logs; I got the 4” X 4”s for a cabin we built on some land her dad had given us. We loved that cabin, and spent many happy nights and weekends there before it was vandalized almost beyond repair some years later. Nate and Deb began their married life there, but it’s all fallen in now.

Dennis on the other hand, built a proper log house in the woods for Mina. It has all the modern conveniences except electricity. The power company wanted a small fortune to run a line through the woods, so they heat with wood, water provided by the hydraulic ram, and propane lamps for lighting. No TV, internet, or electric appliances. When people visit for the first time, the reactions are predictable and inevitable. The women ask Mina, “How do you manage?” while the men take a deep breath and visibly relax with a sigh of contentment.

It was that feeling of peace and contentment that washed over me again as I stepped out of the car. We walked through the woods to the house where we were invited inside for coffee and cookies. Madeline joined us at the kitchen table while Nathan played outside with the dogs, running happily through the woods. We talked for an hour, at the end of which, we cleared the table, donned our coats, and headed back to the car and home. It’s been a couple hours, but the peacefulness of that place and of the wonderful couple who live there is still with me, and for that and them, I am truly thankful today.