Morning dawns at the cabin in slanting rays of dappled sunlight and with the rush and roar of the lakeshore breeze through the host of hostas, the cabin’s perpetual sentinels, and through their attendants, the old maples and firs.
Called into wakefulness by these familiar friends, I’d breathe in the sharp, joyous scent of smoke still lingering from wintertime blazes in the large, open fireplace across from me.
The fireplace felt like a mosaic, a puzzle, a riddle, a clue.
Built out of the same slate-gray stone as the cabin, it reached the ceiling and covered almost the full length of the wall. From the keystone at the top of the rounded hearth, slim stones fanned gracefully. Three narrow stone shelves built into the wall staggered upwards from left to right. On the first, Grandma displayed a painted Scandinavian plate, its rich rosemaling intricate and engrossing. On the central shelf perched an antique three-masted model ship, its sails billowing. On the high, right-hand shelf presided a carving of a horse, alive and exultant, in richly grained, polished red wood.
Even though I knew my grandmother had placed the plate, the ship, and the horse on these shelves, they felt so wild, so curious, so ancient, an inseparable part of the whole. It felt as if they contained within their beautiful, elegant forms, or in the convergence of their essence, a key to the magic of the cabin.
Studying these mysteries, I’d sit up, dangle my feet from the couch in the great room where I’d slept, and snuggle my toes into the worn but richly-patterned Persian rug in its faded, royal red.
Above me was another wonder—the massive, many-tiered crystal chandelier cascading in splendor from its long chain hung at the center of the A-framed great room. Though elaborate, it was not exaggerated; it possessed the extravagant simplicity of a spiderweb sparkling in the dew of early morning.
Its many-faceted, dangling crystals spun sunlight into rainbows while ropes of beads draped from the crown of the chandelier to the candelabra and looped from the candelabra to a central crystal teardrop.
I have always longed to finger the crystals, to feel the cold, heavy looping weight of the beads sink into my palm, to comprehend the profound grandeur of symmetry and stones and light.
Ahead of me, just to the left of the fireplace, was the door to the dining room and kitchen where I heard Mom bustling. Breakfast would be ready soon. To the right, the two bedroom doors, and then a little nook tucked under the spiral of the stairs.
Ah, the staircase! Carpeted in thick red velvet, and bound by a twisted, wrought-iron banister, the narrow oak stairs hugged the wall as they wound up to a balcony overlooking the great room. The velvet was luxurious, the twisted iron formidable, the effect grand.
Snuggled at its base was the cozy corner nook evoking ideas of history fading into myth. In the farthest recess of the corner, a lamp with a basket-woven lampshade splashed honeyed light over the antique Bible beside it on the marble-topped end table. It spattered golden pinpricks of light on the warm knotty pine paneling behind it and slanting away above it at the angle of the stairs. These items were placed in service of a plush, gold armchair and its companion, an elaborate needlepoint rose pillow, whose twined satin binding in gold and green echoed the twisting banister and suggested tangled secrets. Behind the lamp was a hidden door that led beneath the stairs (to where?), and beside it a black knight in full armor standing at attention that Grandma had named Sir Standsalot.
A chill of delight would wash over me in layers as I surveyed this nook. The dark knight and antique Bible recalled Arthurian legends and Crusaders, while the rose needlepoint pillow suggested ancient tapestries created by, perhaps, Lady Guinevere. Yet the rose pillow and its twined border hinted at Briar Rose whose knight would soon come slashing through the thorns and to her side, even while the guarded door (that maybe led to the lake?) evoked thoughts of the twelve dancing princesses escaping their sentries, crossing the water, and dancing the night away.
A quick glance upstairs to see the bathroom door being opened. This was my chance! Stepping off the Persian rug, my feet savored the cool, smooth oak planks that croaked out a raucous welcome despite my best efforts to not wake the little ones as I picked my way towards the stairs. Every year I tried to find a system to avoid the creaking of the stairs, but every year a system eluded me. The stairs would not be silenced. Along the stairway wall, hung pastoral scenes of watermills and cowherds, open meadows and forested mountains. Then, always a shock, a striking and vicious golden double-headed eagle that looked like a family crest from far away and long ago.
Now at the top of the stairs, level with the chandelier, I’d finger the matching crystals hanging from wrought-iron wall sconces beside the bathroom’s sliding wooden doorway, then slip through to the single, long, narrow, low-ceilinged bathroom. This room felt made for dwarves, and I instantly became Snow White. The mirror-topped vanity table and the mirrors on the built-in cabinets along the walls seemed as if they might, in my absence, hold council to decide the fairest one of all. Inside one mirrored cabinet was a tea-set painted with scenes from Alice in Wonderland. More layers. To get to Alice, I had to reach through, or at least behind, the looking glass. I’d finger the white porcelain knobs, cool and smooth to my touch, and imagine joining Alice for tea on the other side of the glass. If only I had eaten that soap.
The sink, toilet, and almost uselessly small, square-shaped bathtub were all a creamy peach that blended well with the mural in creams and browns and deep greens Grandma had painted on the walls and steeply sloping ceiling, a scene of Canada geese in graceful flight above and a fringe of bowing cattails below. A small lead-latticed alcove window hung with lace curtains overlooked the flower beds overflowing with hostas, the mossy front yard, and the tree swing in the giant maple tree. It was from this three-paned window that I frequently witnessed the arrival of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents as they approached the cabin door across grass glowing emerald green in the sunlight.
Rachel Brown
enjoys sipping tea, savoring good books, and spending time outside.
She is daily inspired to live more deeply and love more fully by her husband and two children.