The Owl House

When I was young, around Quinn’s age, we moved from Massachusetts to Fairport, New York. A suburb of Rochester, our town was, logically, full of suburban neighborhoods, ours among them. We lived on Towpath Trail, a horseshoe-shaped road that didn’t resemble a trail at all, with it’s two story colonial style houses and well-kept lawns. There were kids everywhere and we played, and fought, as kids do. 

On the far end of our road was a house with a young girl near my age. I can’t remember any details of her: her name, her specific age relative to mine, nor what she looked like. I remember only that she had, sitting in her backyard, a play house big enough for “grown” girls like ourselves to stand up in, walk around in, disappear from the outside world in. 

The little house was not well cared for. It was full of moldy growth and debris, and I felt the sadness of that even though it wasn’t mine. Perhaps because it wasn’t mine. I felt as though it was in the care of the wrong girl—not well loved as it should be. I imagined what I would do if I had such a house of my own. I craved such a space, a place to hide out and escape my younger, eager-to-play sister. A place to do my dreaming and thinking in private. I pleaded with my dad, again and again, to build me one. He declined, again and again, and I settled for building a fort in my wide closet, upstairs in my room.

Some desires, I realize, especially now that I’m a parent myself, are passing fads or phases. Toys seen and longed for lose their novelty once acquired and so grow dusty on the shelves, or moldy in the yard. But this desire of mine, for a little play house, formed in third grade when I was the new girl in a school full of kids with funny accents, who perceived me to be the girl with the funny accent, did not pass. Perhaps because I felt the outsider in my new surroundings—someone arrived after early elementary school friendships were already formed, someone who arrived behind in learning cursive and, no doubt, other academic skills—perhaps that is why the desire for a place of my own initially stuck. And perhaps because we moved again, six years later, to repeat the process of trying to find my spot, the dream of a little “play” house persisted. 

A dream that long in the mind is hard to shake, and my dream of a little house of my own has followed me through life, even, it turns out, after I built my little house in the woods with Sam, and loved it to its core as my first true and lasting home, the place I’ve built a family and a life I love. Even in that little house, I have continued dreaming of the littler house. The simple place tucked into the trees, with books and a wood stove and a comfortable place to sit and write. 

The playhouse dream became the writing cabin dream and in the years since I’ve fallen off my brief but regular writing habit, the years in which Quinn has become a human of her own, and my job has become a greater and greater impact on my life, the desire has, at times, overwhelmed me, as it once did when I was in third grade. 

And so, when my job flared up, into significantly more work, for a brief one-year time of school transition, and that flare up brought a paycheck with it, I felt the time finally had come. Something good and tangible had to come from the year of life that disappeared. Quinn’s first year of school, her kindergarten year, was my first year of school leadership. We were both out of our comfort zones, both being challenged in more ways than we probably would have liked, and the little cabin in the woods became an imperative more than a wish…a place we could disappear into, from the outside world.

When I started dreaming it out loud, Sam was supportive and encouraging, as he always is, and always has been, when confronted by my desires. While his calm “it will all be alright” attitude can drive me crazy when I am convinced of disaster, it comes in handy when I’m looking for the courage to take a next step. On winter afternoons, in early 2017, when we were stuck indoors, Quinn and I would sketch what we named, early on, The Owl House. And when it was time to take that next step, calling in Josh to talk about what it would take to make it real, it was Quinn’s drawing we sent him, and from which he drew up the plans.

Set in motion, the frame was cut that spring, but as the summer months raced towards us, and I realized I had only saved a third of the funds we’d need, and had done none of the prep (decision making about the site, the materials, windows, etc.), I had to slow it down.  Josh offered to store the frame for us for a year and I suddenly had the time to savor the process, as I had done when we built our house. Researching wood stoves for my small space, understanding insulation options, calculating how big my windows could be, finding a great deal on flooring I knew I would love…all of it a joy and yet the cabin itself was still somehow intangible, in spite of the cabin supplies piling up in our basement.

The next school year wrapped up (as much as it ever does) in June of 2018, and with an early July raising date, the same timing as when we built our house eleven years ago, the pressure was on for me to choose the spot to build it. This decision, as with all other commitments in my life, proved the most difficult. I imagined it in a spot surrounded, in close proximity, by trees—that was a must, it must be tucked in. I imagined birch trees, though we don’t have too many and they are pretty well dispersed. We have beautiful stone walls that are inviting, but finding a flat spot without a threatening spruce above it is hard. And finding a spot that would remain unadulterated by neighbors’ future decisions weighed heavily—probably more than any other factor. It must be tucked in, and it must always be so.

I wandered and wandered and entertained countless exasperated suggestions from Quinn, and more than a few patient ones from Sam.  As was true our first time through, Sam was willing to defer to my wishes, in spite of the fact that he would inevitably be the guy to do the manual part of the work, and in spite of the fact that I imagined this a cabin for our family, not just for me. 

My search continued, with increased difficulty the closer we got to the deadline, until one early morning before work when I walked out the basement door and resumed pacing, this time along the bottom of our still evolving “meadow.” Blackberry thickets ten yards deep formed an impenetrable barrier to our remaining woods, until that morning. That morning I saw, for the first time, a cleared entry and a worn path. I followed it downhill into the woods and found myself standing on a relatively flat spot, surrounded by white and yellow birch trees, a lovely hemlock, some sizable maples. Always here there are spruce, small and tall, but this spot was truly a mixed lot, with dappled light, out of sight of the house, in nearly the center, width-wise, of our small six acre lot. I was stunned and overcome by a strong sense of having finally arrived. 

When I sat down on a log to take it in, glancing casually to the ground I saw a pink lady slipper orchid right between my feet. When Sam first walked me around the perimeter of this lot, working to convince me it was the spot meant for us, I pushed through chest deep ferns to find myself in a tiny field of orchids—a clear sign, as Lady Slipper Orchids have always been linked, for me, to my mother. Memories of my mother, and stories of my growing daughter kept me writing actively each month for a few years after Quinn was born. Then I got busy and missed a month, and then two, and then three years. As I got closer to realizing my dream of a writing cabin, I inevitably started to doubt whether I had any more stories to write. Or, worse, whether I’d know how to write them if they came. In these past few years that have flown by undocumented, our stand of lady slipper orchids has seemed to disappear. I’ve looked for them in May, the time when they usually bloom, like little pink lights on the forest floor, right around Mother’s Day, but it has been years since I’ve seen any. Until this year, just when I needed one, I found it hanging on past its bloom time—a single orchid, helping confirm where my cabin should be.

I hurried back to the house astonished by my discovery and eager to tell Sam and Quinn. Sam, who was unsurprised, had been cutting back brambles the day before and hauling old felled logs out of the woods. Just some routine clean-up for Sam that revealed the answer to my unanswerable question. My relief was immense.

Sam spent two weeks at the end of June and beginning of July clearing and leveling the spot, assembling boulders and building the foundation. We took a short break to visit the clan in the Poconos for the annual Jackson family gathering and, while there, I picked up a Mary Oliver book next to the elder Sam’s reading chair and opened randomly to this:

And so with that added good omen, we returned to Vermont and prepared for the raising on July 10th, a Tuesday. Josh was in France with Geraldine and the boys, so Timo was our partner and guide for the raising and the work ahead. As we did with our house, we raised the frame by hand, grateful to have many of the same beloved hands with us to lift her up. By some miracle, Kim and Justin and the girls were home from Lithuania. Corey was able to come, and so was Jerry, with Henry in tow. Other friends made it as well and, just as happened the first time, I spent the day feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for these lasting friendships—friends who show up on days when you need them. It’s hard to explain what it means to have a place built by those you love—their spirits reside forever in the timbers from that first lifting up. And when you box it all in, and step inside, it’s impossible not to feel their energy. Even strangers who have visited our house have commented on it—an undeniable presence of soothing calm and warmth.

The night of the raising, as is true most nights in the summer, I stood at my bedroom window and listened to owls in our woods. That night I would have sworn I heard one calling from the Owl House timbers, standing proud in their new home among the birches.

The few weeks that followed were busy. We had an unusually long stretch of hot, bone-dry weather for nearly all of July. Unlike when we built the house, when it rained for weeks from the minute our frame went up, this time we had the luxury of not worrying about keeping materials and tools dry. Timo arrived early each morning and he and Sam worked late into the afternoons. My job was largely to occupy Quinn and run the errands needed to keep the work moving. I would have liked to do more, and Sam would have happily traded places with me at times, but there is no denying that his skills far exceed mine. Still, Timo put me to work whenever I could be there, showing me the details of a project (insulating the floor, taping the seams of the vapor barrier, or working to seal a chimney gasket), and doing his best not to tease me too much when it took me five times longer (at least) than it would have taken him.  Mostly, as I’d done before, I spent time after the day’s work was done, tidying the site, clearing out the day’s garbage, restocking supplies and setting up for the next day’s fresh start. Some projects I did after hours when I had the place to myself. They were minuscule contributions, but something that helped me feel involved. 

In just thirteen days together, Sam and Timo had the whole building enclosed and all but one window installed. The Owl House was real. Beautiful and real.

And then, in August, Sam needed a break, and I owed him that, for sure, even though it was hard for me to stop with certain things left undone. Always my impetus is to complete all the work in one push—no matter what the work is. This need has helped me get a lot done in life, but it hasn’t necessarily helped my physical or mental health. These past three years at work have been incredibly busy, my work now being people, rather than projects, and I’ve realized, finally, the work never ends. If I wait for my work to be “done” before I take a break, the break will never come. 

In mid August, after a couple of weeks off—with a baking class for Quinn, lacrosse in Lake Placid for Sam, time at the lake with Char, some camping at Green River, and a trip to Montreal for a day—Sam was recharged enough to come back to the work. He installed the last giant window by himself—the struggle of hoisting it up the ladder and leaning it into place alone was no doubt less troublesome than having me tell him what to do each step of the way. Neither of us can stop being ourselves. We brought boxes and boxes of walnut flooring out of the basement, finally, and realized that we had exactly the amount we needed for the one-and-a-half floors. On September 7th, we celebrated Quinn’s 8th birthday with pizza and presents and our first overnight in the cabin. Soon after, I brought three 2x6 pine boards home one day, and the next day had a beautiful ladder with walnut plugs connecting the main floor to the loft. Another day, I found a wall of lovely shelves to hold my books—many of them in boxes for years waiting for this very space. Sam quietly continued, in all of his free time, to make each detail of my dream come true. Eventually, with the help of the tractor (and a visiting cousin Rob), we got the wood stove down the hill and, some time later (painstakingly) the stove pipe was connected and work was complete.

The week of the raising, in mid July, my horoscope was uncanny:

I’ve taken to calling my writing cabin a reading cabin now, daunted as I am by the pressure to produce something worthy of this beautiful, sacred place. Just sitting here for an hour somedays, long enough only to warm up the stove, drink a cup of tea and read some poems, is enough to fill me with a peace that is physical, and gratitude that brings me quickly to tears. Time here changes my whole perspective, recalibrating a sense of what really matters in this short life…and reminding me of the work I have to do each day to thank Sam, and Quinn, for making real every beautiful thing I’ve ever imagined.