Cabin Fever

My children have only known The Cabin as a family destination for summer get-a-ways. It is simply what we do and where we go. Just as their father, and their grandmother before them. The structure is modest, its main parts original to its birth, it slants slightly and creaks often, and looks impossibly tiny underneath the wispy canopy of 100-year-old white pines. The dock has been remade over the years, but it’s location has remained the same, losing daily battles from trees and orientation for the sun which arrives in full blast in late afternoon, where kids have played and parents have watched them for eighty years.

This Fourth of July is no different than years past. We fight the traffic to get up here, meeting cousins and in-laws and neighbors. I enjoy my daily routine of long morning walks, the first one always gathering wild flowers in a wicker basket to carefully arrange in a favorite green vase freckled with gold bits, using small amber colored glasses for the excess, that I will put on tables and dressers and near the bathroom sink. This year, I dared to trespass upon a quiet farm after seeing a beautiful peony bush laden with gobs of magenta. But my daring was too late. On closer inspection, the blooms drooped towards the ground, tired and spent; save one, which I snatched like the thief I am.

I’ve noticed that “heading to the cabin” is part of our deep Minnesotan culture. It got me thinking, what is it that calls us to these structures? To this way of life? Here is my speculation:

#5. THE GENERATION BEFORE, BROUGHT US (AND PASSED IT DOWN). It’s pretty common in Minnesota that The Cabin has been in the family for generations. This in itself builds an affinity for these buildings, which often changes to loving devotion as we age, despite the constant upkeep. Sometimes it is something that we had when we were very young and perhaps was sold out of the family, but as adults we want to recreate it for our own kids and buy one out of nostalgia, in hopes to start our own cabin legacy.

#4. IF WE’RE LUCKY, IT IS ONE OF THE FEW THINGS THAT BRINGS ADULT SIBLINGS TOGETHER. Of course, I have seen it go south when it becomes an obvious strain spread across a family due to: finances, abuse of property, or gross discrepancy of labor. But more often I have seen (and have experienced) it becoming the glue that will keep busy and somewhat disconnected adults committed to coming together. Year after year.

#3. IT IS THE ONE PLACE WE GIVE OURSELVES PERMISSION TO UNPLUG. This has probably always been the case. I imagine The Cabin is the sacred spot where countless women could let their hair down, sit in the yard in their bathrobes, not having to yell at the kids to be quiet, sipping wine out of mason jars around the campfire. In our modern time, I see the need and immediate shift upon arrival of not being tied to a cell phone, or computer, or TV. We tell our bosses we’re going to The Cabin and it is simply understood we cannot be reached.

#2. NATURE. Because we are unplugged, we are suddenly aware of the loveliness and abundance of nature that we are blinded to in our everyday lives. The greens of the tree line cut sharp jagged rhythms against a clear blue horizon, birdsong is sweet and ever-present, and every night sunsets smudge the lake and sky in reds and golds and violets. Nature has a way of refueling us that is singular and universal.

#1. IT BECOMES PART OF OUR DNA. Whether we keep The Cabin in the family, or lose it, doesn’t really matter. If we’ve visited it enough times, it has the unique property to hold our past, present and future all at once. It is often where we grew up and in our time and space there, it shaped us, forging deep relationships with family. Because of our history, it is where we bring our own children in hopes it will be the same. And then one year—such as this year was for me—you recognize your children are on the cusp of becoming their own selves, separate from you, and you realize they have come to feel the same way about your beloved cabin. You know with certainty, as you do within yourself, that in their hearts it has transformed from a mere place, to being part of their identity.

Read more about Summer in Minnesota in a previous blog, Northern Exposure.