I drove my SUV out to the old place. It was a sub-SUV, small enough that I could handle it, yet it sat a little higher than a regular car, plus it was good for hauling stuff around. Roger had a full-size SUV, and as I pulled up behind his vehicle, I realized it wasn’t only a matter of grading the dirt driveway, but where would the workers park? How would the large equipment move safely around the work site?
Some of these trees would need to go, yet each one felt like a friend. This was going to be a day of hard decisions. I stiffened my posture. Sometimes tough decisions were what it took to move forward.
“Hi, Roger.” I waved. He walked toward me, dressed in jeans but also in a collared, button-down shirt. Today’s shirt was a soft blue. He always dressed neatly, and I imagined it was a hangover from his days in uniform. I liked it. We met beside his SUV.
He motioned toward the yard. “We have to talk about clearing some trees.”
“I see the problem.”
“The easiest way would be to knock down these trees here in the front, and a couple of those over there will definitely have to go—and should go because they don’t look sound to me—and that will clear the way for parking. Frankly, you’ll probably enjoy having access to an open grassy area after all the work is done.”
“You’ll grind the stumps?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“I could use the area as a garden, maybe.”
“Remember we’re setting up garden beds for you in the backyard when we get to the landscaping. Let’s walk around back. I put in some stakes to mark the layout of the house.”
He put his hand on my elbow as if I might need assistance with finding my safe footing through this wilderness. I almost laughed.
“It’s not exact, but only close.”
Room here, room there, view, and so on—he gave me a tour. “After we’ve cleared the outbuildings—”
I moved abruptly; it startled him. He stopped speaking midsentence.
“Not the pottery cabin. Remember? You can clear out the old chicken coops and the shed. I’ll need a new shed in whatever location you think best. Take the old outhouse, too, please. But I’m keeping the cabin. It needs some fixing up, and I know it’s close to where the house will be, but I like that. It’s convenient for my studio. It needs electric and water—”
“Hannah. Hold on. Relax. You already told me to keep the log cabin. As much as I’d like to incorporate those logs in the house, I understand why you want to keep it, and we’ll work it into the overall landscaping layout.”
“Did you know this was the original cabin? My grandfather did some work on it through the years, especially when he fixed it up for me, but it’s still sound.”
“Hard to imagine whole families living in a one-room, one-loft structure today.”
“But it was perfect for my pottery and still can be.”
“We’ll rerun the electric and the propane lines. Water, too.”
When I’d set up the shop in town, I’d had the old kiln moved there. Would I move it back? Or buy new? Maybe I’d want to go a little more basic, with a hand-built, hand-fired kiln. So much to consider. I touched his sleeve. “Thanks, Roger.”
The remains of twelve autumns past had fallen here, the cold wet of an equal number of winters, and the perennial birth of spring and the lushness of summers, had all layered and mixed over and into the rich mineral soil. It created life within the dirt, and I’d felt that richness, almost like ground breathing beneath my bare feet, back when I’d gone barefooted, had grown up barefooted. When I’d followed the old paths and walked in the shallow parts of Cub Creek, and when I’d held a younger Ellen and had dangled her small feet in the creek and she’d squealed in delight.
My heart warmed. Life wasn’t just about genetics and birth and loss. But that’s where my ability to express it ran out. Verbalizing the connectedness I felt, of molecules intermixing and creating something new and beautiful, was beyond my ability to explain even all these years later.
“Hannah?”
I jumped.
“Sorry I startled you.”
I smiled at him, perhaps too fondly because his lips smiled in return.
“I’m reminiscing. Remembering how it felt years ago.”
We walked to the small bridge over the creek. I stood there at the rail, the water flowing under my feet, and looked back at the site, at the last vestiges of where I’d grown up. But the land—both Grand and Gran always said—the land remained regardless of whatever else occurred.
“It was a pretty bare existence from what I’ve seen,” Roger said.
“Bare? No. Basic maybe. Yet very rich. People don’t know how that works anymore. They live in their houses and put up glass and screens and yell if the door doesn’t get closed all the way because the AC is getting out or the bugs are getting in. They have their yards and lakes and whatnot, but it’s nothing more than a pretty picture seen through their windows. They don’t live in it. I lived in it. The outside was my home, too. My living didn’t stop at the boundaries of our four walls. It was virtually limitless.” I added, “And loved. I was so loved, Roger. Sometimes it still overwhelms me. My grandparents were my people. Everything I am or will be is thanks to them. I don’t remember my parents. It hurt my grandparents to speak of them. They loved their only daughter so very greatly that they took all their grief and multiplied it with their love and gave every ounce of it to me. Never failing.”
“I hope you weren’t hurt by any of the things I’ve said about the house and about this property.”
“No. What you’ve said is reality. I’d be a fool to be offended. But what I do know is that the accumulated history of living hereabouts, including past generations, is the truth. And that can’t be denied, either.”
We’d moved beyond the bridge, and he held out his hand to assist me over the fallen tree. After a brief hesitation, I accepted it. I liked Roger very much. I could certainly do far worse than encourage a closer relationship with him. But not yet. For now, I had to concentrate on the tasks at hand.
First came Ellen and her graduation, and meanwhile my home would be under construction. I didn’t need to be distracted by other decisions. I wanted my house built. After Ellen was safely off at college, I could consider me.
Roger and I had walked up the slope, and here was the cemetery enclosed in its walls. The stacked stones were mostly intact and about thigh high, but with no gate and no opening, as if reinforcing the idea of permanency.
“I should go. The shop needs my attention, especially since I’ll probably be spending time out here at the cabin as the construction progresses.”
“Which begs the question—you have Cub Creek Pottery in Mineral. Why do you want to set up a shop out here, too?”
I leaned against the wall, giving no appearance of wanting to go anywhere despite what I’d said. “I don’t get much traffic at the storefront. I do more business with other businesses and private purchasers. Sometimes I wonder why I bother, frankly.”
“Why? What’s the problem?”
“It’s uninspired, Roger. I’ve been making the same pottery and clay sculptures year after year. Maybe it’s the best I can do. Sometimes I wonder why anyone buys it.” I looked at my hands. There was no answer there.