Post #3165: Cabin details

The wind against the strings of the guitar hanging on a post of our deck, catching the hollow of the body and making a faint thrum as though being played.

The pleasure of opening up a thrift store book to find an artifact from the past–an old train ticket, theatre stub, bus transfer–that gives me some insight into the last person who was reading it and what they were doing. Today I found a bus ticket from 1992 in Vancouver. Once I found a slip of paper with a1940s phone number written on it, the kind that required an operator to call it, a word followed by four numbers.

My husband making noise with effort as he hoists plywood underneath the cabin. He is attaching doors to a storage compartment he is building. While not handy by nature, he has been teaching himself how to make do lately. I find it’s better if I don’t work with him on these projects. It reminds me too much of the dynamic between my parents when we do.

How one pen feels right when another does not; how my hand cramps after only a few sentences and that makes my tooth hurt where I just bit down on a square of dark chocolate.

Just an hour ago, a conversation with Ron driving by on his ATV who stopped the flow of our words after five minutes to explain why he was driving around with his lever-action shotgun beside him. “Coyotes,” he said, “Moose. Cougars. Even bears.” As though I might not know. His gun didn’t give me pause and neither did he. Apparently I am used to encounters out here. Everyone is extra-friendly when they are carrying a gun.

A hash made of leftovers just before sitting down to write. Potatoes, garlic scapes, dandelion greens, red pepper and pork chop with a splat of rhubarb ketchup on top. I’m always a bit sorry when Brian doesn’t feel like eating with me, but also glad when I get to have it to myself.

The ache in my tooth reminding me that I haven’t seen a dentist in three years.

The mosquitoes landing on my hand, the ring of water on the table left behind by the glass I drank from at lunch, the sound of a hammer, a chainsaw, a logging truck out on the main road.

The taste of stale chocolate, my tooth.

Bird song, chipmunk chatter. The body of the guitar knocking up against the post it’s hanging on. The chime of the strings each time it knocks wood against wood.