Home Away from Home

I stood in the cabin that was to be my home away from home for three days and nights and looked around at its lumber frame, the plywood that sheathed the walls and ceiling, and the pine boards that formed the floor beneath my feet, all of it unfinished. The two large windows and the top half of the door held no glass, only screens. The exterior had been painted standard campground brown, presumably for protection against the elements and to match most of the other buildings on this compound where I was to be only a peripherally necessary chaperone for my son’s sports-team retreat.

I love cabins. I love the word itself, and how a clear image comes to mind just at the thought of it. I love where they’re located: under the canopy of trees, or surrounded by forest. And I love their aesthetic of warm wood and sturdy cast iron. When we get around to gutting our kitchen and bathrooms (in the case of the downstairs bathroom, hopefully before the leaking plumbing rots out the floorboards entirely and the cast-iron tub falls into the basement; in the case of the upstairs bathroom, hopefully even sooner than that, since it’s already half-gutted), we will most definitely be incorporating cabin-like elements. I don’t need fancy, and I don’t like fussy. Also, I’m frugal, and wainscoting or lengths of shiplap are generally less expensive than tile, as well as easier and less time-consuming to install. I’m so besotted with cabins that my favorite stage in the renovation of our former rowhouse’s sixty-four-square-foot kitchen, if you can have a favorite stage in a process that left you with PTSD, was when we had stripped away all remnants of the 1970s from that small room and what remained were the old-growth-lumber framing and some planks. Essentially, a cabin. Which was fitting, because cooking in the kitchen while it was in that state was kind of like camping.

So with the stay in the cabin alone I felt like things had gotten off to a good start. And things looked even better when I learned that, contrary to what we had been told, electric lights were available at the flick of a switch. And then, after a day spent kayaking, swimming, and running, with further plans on subsequent days for canoeing, reading, and writing—and did I mention that meals were prepared for us?—I thought, I could absolutely live here, even without the presence of the nice people at the dining hall who made delicious, nutritious meals magically appear and all the dirty dishes magically disappear.

The cabin was about a hundred steps in one direction from the unpaved parking area where my car sat and about the same distance in another direction from the building containing the women’s and girls’ toilets and showers. And sure, maybe having to make the schlep along a wooded path at midnight and again at two in the morning just to use the bathroom wasn’t super convenient, but I did find the nighttime air invigorating. Although maybe it wasn’t so much the cool, clean air but rather the thought of lurking animals that got my blood pumping. In hindsight it’s hard to say.

What I do know for certain, however, is that the lack of glass in the windows and the door wouldn’t fly when it got to be thirty degrees below zero, which it does sometimes in the depth of winter where we were. Nor would the cabin’s single-ply construction. My own house’s lack of insulation has me well-versed in how cold a room can get, and my house—unlike that cabin—is meant to be lived in all year round.

But still, I told myself I could live there.

Though on the second night of lying half-zipped in a sleeping bag on the bottom berth of a bunk bed prepared with a thin plastic mattress, waiting for both a cross breeze and sleep, neither of which came, I accepted that I’m just as much used to my creature comforts as most people. In simple terms, I’m more town mouse than country mouse. Although when I’m in a town setting—meaning, a city—the country mouse in me feels its discontent after a while too. Regardless, I wonder what kind of mouse it was—town or country—that one of my fellow chaperones saw crawling up the walls in the cabin she was assigned to.

All it took, however, to counteract two nights of very little sleep was a cooling swim in the small mountain lake the private campground sat on the shores of, and then there I was, fully refreshed and commenting to that same fellow chaperone that I loved the pine-needle paths we were at that moment walking on, and the mulched seating area that overlooked the water. This parent happens to be a good friend of mine, so I risked her thinking me nuts by saying wouldn’t it be great to forget regular flooring in my house and just mulch the rooms instead.

I’ll euphemistically call that brainstorming and put it down to exhaustion from lack of sleep. Nonetheless, these are the sorts of odd ideas we get when we leave our actual home for a temporary stay elsewhere. Getting a little out of one’s own context can change a person, for better or for worse.

But those urges to either relocate or redecorate based on the good feelings we experience during vacations are very real phenomena. The former takes guts or money, or both. And sometimes it isn’t a bad idea. A very long time ago, when I worked at a clothing consignment store, I was told that a woman had come in with all her winter clothes to sell because she was moving to Hawaii. Apparently, she’d gone there on vacation and thought, Why not? I believe she was unmarried and had no family, and presumably she had worked out the logistics of having enough income. The woman who ran the shop said, encouragingly but tritely, “Life is short.” And the customer replied, “It’s short, but it’s wide.” I hope I never forget those words.

And that is the most compelling reason I can think of to leave your home and travel: it reminds you that, no matter how great or how awful or how so-so your living arrangements are, there is a world of possibilities out there. And what you may or may not even know you’re looking for—a rustic cabin or different weather or a city that cherishes its architecture or a town where the people are friendly—awaits you somewhere.

Unlike post-vacation relocation, vacation redecoration is pretty much always to be resisted. I am sure my husband would be happy to learn, if I’d ever told him about it in the first place, which I didn’t, that I will not be ordering a few cubic yards of mulch for our living room.

On a wonderful, memorable trip to New Mexico that my husband and I went on a few years after we were married and had bought our first house, we did, however, return with a couple of hammered-copper light-switch plates that caught my eye. They were subtle enough that they worked with our decor. Anything more big-skies-and-mesas Southwestern would have looked silly and out of place in our small Northeastern city rowhouse. I did fall in love with the heavy Spanish carved doors at the inn we stayed at, and with pretty much every door I saw during that trip, but had we gotten carried away and bought ourselves one to take home, its magnificence would have been lost in translation.

Not to give the impression that we hang with the jet-set, because we don’t, but we have had the very good fortune and privilege of being able to travel some, out of our time zone and sometimes a little bit out of our comfort zone. Even when it’s for leisure, travel is not always synonymous with vacation.

When we went to Italy, which we have been lucky enough to do twice, each time it was simultaneously a vacation-come-true and challenging. Navigating the language, the expectations of people we interacted with, and the train, bus, and ferry schedules in a foreign country kept me on my toes.

Difficulties aside, during those Italian trips, as with most of my vacations, I passed through that lovely, gold-dusted, rose-tinted, twilight realm of the we-should-move-here phase. I even studied Italian for a while. I realize that’s not a very interesting or original thing to think or say, because you’re supposed to feel like that on vacation; it’s the sign of a successful trip. And you generally aren’t seeing the worst a place has to offer, with the added bonus that you’re sidestepping your own workaday cares and hassles and so forth while you’re away and pretending to live somewhere else for a while. Essentially, you’re trying on another life and playing house, and it’s supposed to be fun.

The stage set for where we played house the first time we traveled to Italy was a very reasonably priced bed-and-breakfast that I would happily return to sometime if I have the chance. I remember how unbelievably clean it was—much cleaner than my house could ever hope to be, even though I do make an effort. I also remember the colorful Mediterranean tile covering the floors and some of the walls. But what I remember most and best of all was what I can only describe as fairytale shutters. Every morning of our stay, feeling like a bit player in the street scene in Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast, I threw open the enormous window to greet the day. How symbolic and optimistic it sounds, and of course it was an act of joy and pleasure and optimism, since I was on vacation in what I consider paradise. But the fact remains that I did actually open the window, although throwing is an exaggeration, because it wasn’t a single act, it was a series of slow, step-by-step actions with a predetermined, necessary sequence: opening first the interior shutters, then the two halves of the casement window, and then the exterior shutters. I can’t think of as weighty a daily ritual in my regular life that compares, except perhaps for the preparation of my coffee, but I think it can be safely assumed that nobody would buy a postcard featuring a photograph of the dented metal mug I’ve used every day for thirty years, the stained ceramic cone and paper filter that sit atop it, the unglamorous bag of coffee beans that comes from the shelves of a chain grocery store, and my discolored laminate kitchen counter. That picture just doesn’t possess the mystique of a shuttered window in a Southern Italian town.

My home at the time didn’t have shutters I could open and shut like that. And I have been chasing that dream ever since. Someday my shutters will come.

In the meantime, my copper light-switch covers became daily reminders of one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. Also, I’m a practical-minded person, and they seemed a more useful and meaningful memento than an ill-fitting T-shirt. Not to judge: if you want the T-shirt, just get the T-shirt. And my seemingly well-considered purchase aside, the truth is that when we’re on vacation, in our temporary, just-for-fun homes, we often have the time and the inclination to shop. I know that I tacitly give myself permission to spend a little money on vacation, which for me often means returning with an item or two for my real residence. Our guard is down and our filters are off, and maybe so is our judgement. Which is how I was this close to ordering a load of mulch for my living room.

Maybe it is just shopping when we go out and buy stuff to take home with us from what is hopefully a happy memory in the making. But I also like to think it’s an act of being open to ideas and influences. If you buy locally pressed olive oil, or dried lavender grown in a field you can see from where you’re staying, or a textile traditionally made in a place you’re visiting, taking it back home with you is at least a small nod to a life that might be different from the one you yourself are living, in the place you are living it. It perhaps also represents an acknowledgment that at least some aspect of that place appeals to you and has a step up on where you come from. I mean, really, Italians have got something going on with those operable shutters.

Our home comprises more than just the house or the apartment or camper van or repurposed shipping container or boat or whatever that we keep ourselves and our stuff in. Where it is on the map, and the context of topography, social and cultural environment, and climatic conditions, shape our day-to-day lived experience. Sure, reading the newspaper or an armchair-travel book, or watching a film, can open your mind to other people’s day-to-day lived experience and transport you virtually, but gosh it sure is nice just to get away sometimes.

Also, the last time I checked, we’re still physical beings, and it can be hard to know until you yourself walk up the curving steps of a five-hundred-year-old castle how marvelous and solid and almost otherworldly it is. Or how many spiders it has, how damp it is, and how annoying it can be to have small bits of mortar falling on your head as you’re trying to get to sleep.

I really enjoyed our stay at that castle and felt truly grateful for the opportunity, but also relieved as I walked out the enormous board-and-batten door and headed to our next reservation in clean, dry, and more modern lodging where I could take a hot shower. Likewise, I’ve relished my travels so far, such as they are, but I’ve also savored returning from them. We all know what Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz said: “There’s no place like home.” And if there’s a time when we no longer feel that way, lucky for us there’s a world of possibility out there, or at least a cabin to stay in for a while.