Dreaming of a Cabin in the Woods (Just Dreaming)
image by @karsten116 on Unsplash
“I just want to get away from it all and stay in a cabin in the woods,” is a thought I regularly have.
I have this thought as I reach for my phone three feet from me at all times and scroll Pinterest to drool over A frames with a glow of chandelier lighting against a black sky.
“I want to get away from it all and breathe some fresh air and hear nothing but silence,” I dream, forgetting that even thirty minutes of unscheduled time or a blank Google calendar for the day makes me itchy.
“But a lake” I think, as if mosquitoes don’t exist.
“But a vintage hot stove” even though if the car vents are even one degree too toasty or the air current is a little too on me my contacts shrivel as if I am weathering a county-wide drought.
I want to sit and write and not have dumb tasks in my head that all feel equally urgent. Although, I spent two hours on the couch with my laptop this week dragging and dropping photos from the year into a Christmas card template and ordering gifts, however practical, for those I love/ feel obligated to buy for.
I want to garden and compost again, and I do, but I don’t, because squirrels and rain and gnats and sorting and watering.
I want to chill in a cabin in the woods but I want my scalp to always feel clean and my shoulders to be scalded by hot running water every day.
I want to get away, but I want you to come with me and kill the bug on the floor.
I want to be alone, but I want to talk to my mom everyday to go over our tasks so that I can feel accomplished and she can be reassured that I am indeed still alive.
I want to scream “F capitalism!!!” into the wind, but I also want that new pair of Hokas because mine have lost their squish.
I want to get away from gift-giving but I’m happy to send you a link to the sweater I want that I won’t buy myself because I don’t “need” it, and I’ll do the same for you and get you that air fryer, even though you have an oven and also a Bibibop right around the corner.
I’d like to go be in a cabin in the woods, except I don’t own a cabin in the woods and now I feel like a failure for not investing in NFTs and am overwhelmed by the fee list on Airbnb for your family cabin adorned with dusty doily curtains that is also both too close and too far from the highway.
I want to stay in a cabin in the woods and cover all the clocks and just exist, but if I don’t eat every three hours on the dot, I get depleted and cranky and how will I know it’s time for food fuel until my rage spikes and also I feel dizzy?
I want to just be alone in the woods, but if I’m not exposed to the world then all I will inevitably produce will be essays about that one time in middle school when a boy asked me on a date but was joking and while I “knew” he was joking, I got ready anyway, just in case.
I need the world, I’m exhausted by the world, maybe I could just take a break for a weekend or maybe I’ll leave a dream a dream and escape by the dreaming and the pretend planning.
I’ll go to the cabin in the woods as I lay down to sleep at night or whenever I close my eyes and take a deep breath instead of yelling at that lady in Costco who is holding up the flow with her sideways cart and her outing with her five children and also for some reason, her in-laws.
I’ll go for real one day, maybe.
Once I become not afraid of the dark or the passage of time or the direct eye contact of deer (what do they know??)
I’ll go. One day.
Maybe.
With four worn Vera Bradley duffels and a tote so full of snacks that the plastic seams are gritting their teeth, barely holding on.
I’ll definitely do it.
Maybe.
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
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