Ode to a cabin by Sandra Butel
Atton’s Lake, Saskatchewan, July 11th, 2021 photo by Sandra Butel
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.
beautywalk is my way to take my everyday experiences and translate them into steps on my personal path towards growth and development. Today’s piece comes from a few years ago when I was in the first part of my life transformation. I was at a point where I could still feel the grief and loss of my life as I knew it and was engaged in a process that Katherine May calls “Wintering”. I was slowing down and moving into the little pleasures of life that I had all but forgotten. Her words resonate with me, “I had no idea how much these quiet pleasures had retreated from my life while I was rushing around and now I am inviting them back in. Still rhythmic work with the hands, the kind of light concentration that allows you to dream, and the sense of a kindness done in the process.”
I am here in my cozy clothes; striped black & white leggings and my favourite cozy blue and white plaid shirt - mixed metaphors in the patterns that are not supposed to be worn together and yet, like your 4 walls, they feel cozy and right and in this moment of stillness before the rain,after days and days of sunny and hot days, I am safe here with you.
I came upon you by accident of birth. Well, not my birth, so much as the birth of my partner Francis and his brother Eric. You are the summer retreat of Eric and his wife Sarah and their sparkly almost 4 year old Magali. You are full of your previous owners trinkets and collections; exactly the kind of things I would put in my cabin, if I had one of my own.
Your screen door allows for light and air and the passing songs of birds to mingle with the inside voices of your spaces. These inside voices are here with me and they talk to me of peace and quiet and all the moments of happiness that have been spent here with you watching over. They speak to me of moments where you put an invisible hand lightly upon a shoulder when it was most needed and when you swelled with love while watching all the people you count as your own enjoy the spaces in between the furniture and the knickknacks and the things of beauty and utility that fill you up.
With the trees all around your exterior you have the feeling of a treehouse, sitting high above the land. This sensation is most poignant when one is standing on your back deck watching birds flit from branch to branch. While I haven’t seen them at all this time round, there are often hummingbirds that zoom in and out for a stop at the liquid feeders that Sarah has scattered all over the yard. A childhood dream is being realized as I look out over the forest and the lake below. I am high up in the trees and outside in the elements while still being safe and protected in your arms.
How I crave that aloneness more and more each day. That sense that I can do anything and that in my safety I can embrace my cherished time alone. I don’t have to wait until the timing is right for someone to join me, I can just go and have the adventures on my own. This sense of safety in nature and on my own started to take root here with you sweet cabin. I dared to come visit you once on my own and while I was listening for every noise and feeling a bit frightened and nervous about what might come to bother me, I soon relaxed when I realized that you would keep me safe and sound.
Then life did what life often does and brought me great pain and I found myself with even more of a need for aloneness. It is to your loving embrace that I came running and you welcomed me and held me close and I felt anew that there was hope in the land. Your silent support helped me to believe that I could find a new way to live my life and that in spite of my pain and heartbreak I would find my way again into something even more wonderful than before. Time with you and in you was proof of that.
I can see the drops of rain falling outside the window, dropping on a large driftwood bird that was made by Eric and Francis’s Dad, Leon. I can hear the softness dripping through the trees and it makes my cozy state even cozier. I just filled up on the sweet creaminess of homemade hot chocolate and am hanging out on the couch with my laptop and my thoughts. I feel peaceful, I can feel the stillness of my spirit and I can smell the rain as it soaks into the parched earth. I wish it would rain for hours but I get the feeling that it will just be another sprinkle like we had earlier during which I huddled under my beach blanket, which can double as a comforter if the weather turns foul, on the long, heavenly dock that extends from your back laneway all the way into the bird preserve and out past the rushes into the lake. It is a glorious place to spend the day and yesterday I took it in for 7 hours of sun and swimming and reading and writing and meditating and just watching people and feeling all the feels.
Gratitude is with me, seated softly, quietly upon my heart and guiding my eyes to see things with its rose coloured tint. I am grateful to be here with you. I am grateful to be here with me. I am grateful to myself for the permission I have given myself to fully embrace the beauty of who I am and the courage to live the life I truly want to live. I am grateful for all those people and places, like you dear cabin, that allow the space for me to learn and grow more and more each day.
This is Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What steps are you ready to take in building your best life?
What quiet pleasures are calling to you? What one step can you take today to move away from worry (as well as busyness, drama, overwrought responsibility) towards being who you truly are?
I am here if you need to talk it through in a free beautywalk discovery session to get you started on your own path towards a deeper, more satisfying life. https://calendly.com/sandrabutel/free-beautywalk-session
Postscript. Check out Katherine May’s book: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times here https://katherine-may.co.uk/wintering
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