Adelaide B. Shaw
The Getaway
It’s February and a three-day weekend. We leave Los Angeles and head for the mountains to my in-laws’ cabin in Lake of the Woods nestled in the valley below Los Padres National Forest. As we get higher and closer, we see patches of snow. The patches change to mounds on each side of the roads. Neither of us thought to check the weather.
The roads are plowed, but the cabin is nearly buried in snow. And, no. We will not turn back. Hubby gets a small emergency shovel from the car and begins to clear a path to the door, while I stand in the sun shivering.
clap your hands
stamp your feet
circle round
Friday night socials
frozen in memory
After an hour the cabin is ours. an open space which serves as the kitchen, living and dining area, with a small bedroom and tiny bathroom in the rear.
While hubby turns the water on, I flick the switches on the electric heaters. No glow on the grids. No glow from the lamps. No glow anywhere except from the late sun shining through the windows. It’s still, NO. We will not turn back. Rough it a bit. We are not wimps, softies, spoiled by city living. There is a fireplace.
Hubby muscles the back door open to the wood pile on the stoop. Under the snow and the plastic tarp and under two rows of damp wood he retrieves an armload of dry wood.
Heating soup in a pan on the hearth takes time, but we drink wine and munch on crackers and cheese.
cuddling close
temperatures rise
and endorphins flow
satisfying one hunger
we move to the next
With bodies warm and stomachs full we attack the problem of where to sleep. On the mattress from the bed placed in front of the smoky fireplace, of course. Breathing a little smoke seems preferable to getting hypothermia in the freezing bedroom.
There is little sleep that night no matter which way we place the mattress. It’s either cold feet or singed hair. Outside, there is the wind and a howling dog or wolf. It’s the Dracula movie kind of howl, rising to a high pitch and fading. Cold is in that howl, cold and loneliness and hunger are in that howl.
We wait for dawn before we get out from under the blankets. Now, we turn back, but not all the way, just as far back as Ojai where there is no snow, no cold and an inn with a room, in which I don’t see my breath
my favorite things
hot shower, hot food
a feather pillow
wildflowers and sweetness
and you beside me
About the Author
Adelaide B. Shaw lives in Tarrytown, NY. She has been creating Japanese poetic forms for over fifty years. Her books, An Unknown Road (3rd place winner of Merit Awards in 2009), The Distance I’ve Come, Travel Souvenirs, and Ancient History are available on Cyberwit and Amazon. She posts published work on her blog WhitePetals.