I am throwing this one up 150 blogs late. It was amongst the first of the ‘mental steps’ I was going through at the time.
From the archives: #1
Gail Sheehan wrote a book called ‘Passages’. It is about the phases we go through as we age. And, predictably it seems, I have just entered a new one. I am becoming of Cabin age. I need simple. I need small. I need nature. But, most of all, I need out of the damn urban cul-de-sac!
There is a new, more virulent form of cabin fever stalking the land. It is a money-resistant deviant form of Suburbanitis. It is Split-level Fever. And the only known cure is a cabin.
Status won’t help. Expensive restaurants won’t help. Even filthy lucre has not proven long-term effective although symptoms are somewhat alleviated in the short term by massive infusions on a regular basis. Tragically, the victim eventually becomes lucre dependent and eventually still needs the transplant. The patient really needs fresh air and space. And lots of it. Simplicity is the prescription followed by the advice: don’t call anyone in the morning!
That’s what I need, anyway. A great deal more of less. Preferably on the water, ten or twenty miles from some inadequately stocked hardware store, I believe there is a place for me.
It will leak. It will smell musty when we meet and it will likely be adorned in an eclectic mix of malfunctioning systems, cast-off furniture and dilapidated appliances. Sprinkled liberally about will be numerous tasteless bric-a-brac left over from the previous owner. The pattern of the curtains, counter tops and kitchen linoleum will somehow be related but not in any aesthetically pleasing way. Small, dried out rodent carcasses will lie where they can only be reached by someone who cared. And no one did. Some local but still indistinguishable debris from the beach or the forest will have been hauled in and placed in positions of pride or will adorn shelves and window sills for reasons that escape the casual visitor and, perhaps everyone except a psychiatrist. The cabin décor will be a colourful, three-dimensional Rorschach test. And I will see Nirvana in the vision.
I need one. I can no longer worship at the altar of Consumerism. I have seen the light and it is readily harnessed by Photo Voltaic cells. I have converted to wind-power, to composting and to Direct Current. I will walk again! I have become cul-de-sacriligious and I will not falter.
Forgive me if this sounds ever-so-slightly dramatic. Such is the response of most victims who have been dragged from the precipice of death-by-subdivision and, once again, feel alive and passionate about getting back to nature. I urge everyone to experience it. Flirt with a cabin, any cabin. Sleep with one.
It’s easy to get to this state – I think it comes with age – but it helps to have suffered a suburban-based chronic pre-condition to fully appreciate the primal calling. The ideally prepped patient has spent 25 plus years working in government or some other stultifying, coma-inducing environment raising two or more children in a house conveniently located inconvenient to everything.
The patient likely has two or more TVs and that does not count the one stored in the garage for no fathomable reason. Two cars will grace the driveway and, in advanced cases, a sparkling clean 4-wheel drive Behemoth XT will be one of them. Maybe an unused boat and unused RV. Closets will overflow, computers will be everywhere including the two being stored in the garage for no fathomable reason and none of the inhabitants will say a great deal to each other during the course of any given day.
The meaning of it all will be a question that looms large like the proverbial 800 pound Gorilla in the background but never gets addressed because of the heavy demands of the inhabitant’s schedules maintaining the equilibrium of the above described status quo.
Some people are terminal. Too far gone. Pray for them. They are too close to ‘their pension’ to actually change so freedom to live and love in a cabin is just another marketing phrase, an empty dream. But many can be saved….
Still, to hell with ‘em. This is about me. I gotta get out. And my last quasi-neighbourly thought is to suggest a mass exodus of the neighbourhood. Get out! Get out NOW!! Get a cabin. There is more to life than this cul-de-sac!
David Cox is a desperate 50-something who counts the minutes until his kids leave and his wife quits her job. Unemployable today, this previous member of the successful male ruling class cannot get arrested, let alone employed and so has turned, like many thousands of males before him to dreams of hermitage. The president and CEO of OH GOD (Organization of Hermits Gathering out ‘Der), David seeks to retain a semblance of connection to society through the writing of articles chronicling his slow decline into isolation and mental health.
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