Reclaiming Our Place

The cabin has always been easy to love. Our relationship has had a few bumps–inconveniences, really–but I’ve felt only love and devotion for the place. Last year’s busy summer kept us away; I was painfully disappointed not to spend our usual summer vacation there, and I couldn’t wait to be reunited. As we made the long trek across Highway 80, I was excited to get there, anxious to relax and enjoy being there as I always do.

Coming up the drive this time, though, it looked different to me. Hip-high weeds obscured the driveway. The cabin loomed at the top of the drive, looking less welcoming and more shabby than I remembered. The fire ring was choked in weeds and fallen trees. Aspen trees and thistles were pushing up through the deck.  We’d neglected her, leaving her two whole years alone against encroaching nature.

Once inside, I was overwhelmed. The mice had ravaged her, leaving their tell-tale excrement everywhere. The harsh winter had claimed the water heater, and mold coated the refrigerator, which had stopped working. I felt disgusted by the mess, and fearful of getting sick from the respiratory virus, hantavirus, that mice can leave behind in the dust with their filth.

For the first time, I wanted to just leave. Leave the cabin and her horrible mess. This time, she wasn’t easy to love. I didn’t know where to begin. I stood in the kitchen and cried, praying to know how to start to undo the damage of cold and mice and time.  We just had to start.

One person started vacuuming, another carefully spraying and wiping up the scattered pellets with bleach, hantavirus in the back of our minds. Others were reclaiming the deck, clearing weeds, beating down old paths, carving our space out of the wilderness again. We  rolled up mattress pads with pillows, blankets and poop into a ball and threw them away rather than trying to salvage them. Whole drawers went into trash bags. A mattress and everything that couldn’t be easily cleaned was pitched into a trailer to be hauled to the dump. We couldn’t sleep there that night; about 9, we gave up for the day and drove to a hotel in Laramie.

The initial mess was cleaned up, but the mice were still there. We captured or killed at least 14 the first week, and the number rose to 20 before they were all gone. The cabin kept letting them in, harboring those little terrorists, expecting me to clean up after them every morning, disgusting black pellets in the drawers and on the counters, exposing me to potential death. The little intruders were bold–scuttling around the living room, jumping into the dog’s food bowl, prancing through my cookware and across my counter. I wasn’t settled, I was tip-toeing around, afraid of what I’d find around the next corner, in the next drawer, nervous even in my bed that a mouse would leap up on me.

My love had cooled. 

It’s not her fault, I told myself. We shouldn’t have left her alone so long. We should have checked, set traps, been proactive to keep the mice from taking over. It’s not insurmountable, we can do better next winter. But even if it is our fault, even if we can fix it, something has changed. I’ve fallen out of step.

My love had kept me from dwelling on the problems before; now they were all I could see. I strain to see what I saw before, the reasons for my love. Some things are still good. The hot tub, the log cabin the boys are building, sitting on the deck with a beer, the way the dog runs and explores and is so happy, the friendly hummingbirds, hovering around my head when their sugar-water has run out. I remember my love, but it’s stretched and pulled and unrecognizable because of  the anger and fear that crowds out my peace of mind.

I have an idea: I need to take a walk to the meadow, that place where I first fell in love with this place. It wasn’t easy and convenient then, before electricity, the well, comfortable beds–but I could overlook the hardships because I was focusing on the beauty: the giant aspen, the bubbling brook, the wildflowers, the big, open sky. I need to get back to that vision of this place or I won’t be willing to put up with the work of keeping the cabin clean and safe and comfortable. I’ll give up and leave and go where it’s easier.

We have an investment here. I can’t just leave it behind. It’s not just me–the whole family counts this as solid ground, a place that will always be home, a place we can always come and find serenity. I don’t have to do this alone. It’s all of us. When I’m tired and discouraged, someone will come alongside and pick up the burden.

By the time we were packing up, ready to go home, I had made peace with the cabin. The mice were gone. Holes were patched. We had a plan, thanks to a pest-control expert named Gene from Laramie, to keep them out. We decided to come again in a few months to enjoy a Wyoming mountain fall weekend, to hear the bugling elk, to see the golden aspen trees, to soak in the hot tub under clear, cold skies and then to close the cabin for the season. We want to return in early spring to open it up for the summer. There won’t be mice again–or at least, the cabin will have a fighting chance against the wilderness.

It’s a tension we have to live with, the balance between maintaining and discovering, working and resting, pushing back the wild and loving the wildness and beauty of this place.