Twists and Turns

In the summer of 1998, we found some land for sale in southern Wyoming. It had been owned by a railroad company, and had been used for logging out ties for the railroad to use in laying new track. The little bump on the highway near there, with a quirky convenience store and a fireworks stand, was called Tie Siding.

The land had been purchased and sub-divided into 35-acre lots, and was selling cheaply, by our Colorado standards. The man at the sales trailer told us we should look at one piece of land in particular, with two little creeks meeting in its big meadow. We drove as close as we could and started hiking in, clambering over a dense mesh of fallen lodgepole pines. We had five kids with us, scampering around, excited about this wild place, and I was pregnant with our sixth.

It was a pretty little piece of land, once you got past the ugly blow-down on the front slope. Rocky cliffs, aspen stands, lush pine and spruce growing out of the abundant sage, wildflowers dancing in the wind, a little gurgling stream feeding a beaver pond. Near the pond, there was a meadow with a huge, ancient aspen tree in the middle of it. It was the biggest aspen I’ve ever seen. When we saw the meadow, we knew we loved that place. We raced back to the the sales trailer, afraid someone else might get there first and buy our land.

For the first year, we camped just off the road. We built a fire ring, put up a picnic table and and parked our pop-up trailer there permanently. After the baby joined us, the pop-up was too cramped. We decided to put a Tuff Shed garage up the hill from our camping spot and finish the inside to be a cabin.

We were up there most warm weekends from our near-by home in Fort Collins, working on making the empty shell into a comfortable space. We had a huge deck built to wrap around two sides of the cabin, overlooking a forested ridge and an aspen grove. One year, we brought in electricity and were able to put a refrigerator and oven in the kitchen. Years later, we put in a well, and years after that, we put in a septic system and retired the outhouse. A favorite improvement is a wood-fired hot tub–the perfect place to star gaze with a glass of wine.

Inside, the walls are knotty pine paneling, installed by Steve. I made the pine-cone curtains out of flannel sheets. The beds and furniture are a mix of cabin-y pine pieces and worn hand-me-downs. The floors were painted plywood for 17 years before we put in a wood floor, and the windows still leak every time it rains. It feels like home and has become an emotional center of our family life. We now talk about retiring there for part of the year someday soon.

When the four girls and I got our first tattoos together, we decided quickly and unanimously what it should be: the coordinates of the cabin. When Steve’s dad died and we discussed where to bury his ashes, the answer came easily–on the promontory near the cabin. Our dog Oliver loved spending time at the cabin, running freely and pursuing every smell and critter his heart desired, so when he died, it was the obvious choice to bury his ashes at the cabin too. Great Grandma Johnson’s ashes are there too now; she loved the idea of the cabin so much, even though she was never able to come during  her life.

We go there for at least two weeks in the summer, and dream of being able to stay longer. We’ve added a spring trip to open up for the season, and a fall trip to close it up–really just excuses to go there for two more weekends. It’s the first place we think about going when we are burdened or stressed and long for relief. Through moves to California and then within California, it has remained constant.

That place holds memories of growing up, working together and gathering for family events and reunions. It has taken on almost mythical elements–it’s home in a bigger sense, it’s the place we believe we will be our best selves, ourselves at peace. It’s the closest thing to heaven we can imagine.

It is a wonderful place, but it’s not heaven. It’s simply a piece of mountain land in Wyoming, near Laramie, a small town with a pretty good fireworks show on the 4th of July. Its meaning has grown into something bigger because of the significance we put there. It has been a safe place to hide away our desires for a true, unchanging home at the center of our family life.

With every new investment in its physical improvement or in its emotional content–and with every loved one we bury there–we are weighting it, anchoring it in our hearts. By stashing memories and dreams of family and connection into every nook and cranny of those 35 acres, we transform it into The Cabin, Our Favorite Place on Earth.

The other day, one of the kids was talking about a friend’s tradition of visiting family in Germany every summer. We were talking about how amazing that is, and the question was dropped like a little bomb: What cool thing do we do? Just go to Wyoming?

It’s a fair question. We have limited vacation days, limited resources. Going to the cabin means we aren’t going other places. We aren’t exploring fabulous camping sites, seeing all the national parks, discovering the amazing natural and cultural wonders of everywhere else, and international travel isn’t even on the horizon. We have done some exploring on the way to and from the cabin, and circumstances have taken us on trips to different places. Most of our energy, resources and time, though, goes to the cabin.

So I wonder: Was that the best thing to do? What could we have done if we weren’t always there? It’s so simple, so predictable. With so much world and so little time to see it all, why would we spend so much time looking at the same thing? Is it good to delve deeply into a such a small area, or should we have covered a broader swath of the world?

I don’t know. You make a choice and you can’t know what another choice would have been. Each family makes their their own center, their own sacred spaces. It didn’t start with a detailed, long-term plan in our family. One thing led to another, and we ended up at that place.

It was love, I think–just as irrational and potentially painful as a relationship with a person can be; the loves you follow in life are the chances you take, the investments you make because it’s the next step in the direction your heart pulls you. All those small decisions–the paths you follow, the dreams you chase–chain together to create the flow of time and life and resources that forges your family legacy. We make the decision that seems best at each crossroad, not fully knowing the ultimate destination.

This is not a warning to control every twist and turn, every small step, to ensure that you achieve a successful, perfect family experience or live the best possible life. It’s a celebration of those twists and turns. 

It’s an admission that we didn’t do so many things–but look at what we did do, and look at how much we love it. It’s a realization that as our kids form their own families, their loves may take them different places. Some of our children may continue to make the cabin the center of their family life, and others will be busy with other adventures.

We live our lives–one day, month, summer and year at a time–and the paths we follow grow into traditions that accumulate and solidify to become our shared values, a mosaic unique to each family. The destination, after all, isn’t a specific place or set of experiences, but a solid core of connection, the relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandchildren, and an ever-wideneing circle of family.