https://www.angelfire.com/art/cottage/index.html
outsiderartist@excite.com
(Author’s note: It is summer and my brain is a little fried out from all of the heat, so please bear with me as I try to tell you a story.)
”Get lost!” I told him. “If you think giving me an ultimatum, cutting me off of sex, and pushing me into a corner will make me do what you want, you are very wrong. If anything, it will push me so far away from you that light won’t reach planet-you for a million years.”
That’s what prompted me to leave early, on Tuesday, for the cabins. No one else was to arrive until Friday a.m., so I would have two whole days of no one.
I hadn’t been up to the cabins since my parents left me. Uncle Wes had taken over their “management” and had started to build a new, contemporary, trendy,“not-so-big-house” for him and his new girlfriend. “Come whenever you like.” he said. “Email me the directions please.” I added quietly and somewhat embarrassed, “I have totally forgotten how to get there.” When my family status changed I seemed to forget things, mostly family things.
So I went.
The Interstate was a construction nightmare. Another challenge for me to get through, but I was digging driving, just being on the road, so it didn’t really matter. 94 to Milwaukee, 43 north to Green Bay, huge bug chunks splatting forcefully all over my windshield. The clean-off spray just smeared the guts until I reached a roadside rest stop and pulled over. It was already dark. Four hours behind me. I tried to ungoo the windshield but ended up picking up hitchhikers of the insect form. Four or five mosquitoes feasted on my blood all of the way to the cabin.
I was excited to get to Green Bay, but I just went over a giant bridge saw the bay on one side, it really is a huge bay, and refineries to my left. No town. Where is the famed Lambeau Field? Go Packers!
141 to Iron Mountain. “Go through many small towns.” said Uncle’s directions. “Right before Pembine, after Beecher, turn left onto Route 8.” I laughed. “before?” How can I know I am “before” a town until I get there?
”Go to M, there will be a very sharp turn and then a straight stretch. At the top of the hill will be cottage markers. This is Black Forest Road. Turn left.” M was a puzzle. I kept going around very sharp turns, through straight stretches and up hills. The entire road had the same pattern! I turned into a logging road by mistake. On this moonless night, on a lane flanked by massive pines I could barely see anything. For a moment I was afraid. I thought that if my car clunked out, I would be eaten by a bear before another car passed in this direction, perhaps the next morning. Maybe I did need a man in my life after all.
Nope, found it, about 20 miles ahead. “Turn left onto Viking Lake Road. This is a dirt road. Stay left. Watch for a Y in the road, stay on Viking, DO NOT TAKE CURRANT!”
Uncle’s directions ended with:
“Hint:Get gas in Green Bay. You don’t want to get to the cottage and have no gas.”
“Have a Safe Trip.”
”The trip should take about 5 hours.”
I spied the red towel hanging off the fire marker and pulled into the drive and up to the cabin, flicked on the floods and unpacked my bags. The cuckoo clock chirped out midnight (took me 7 1/2 hours to arrive) as I wandered around checking out the place. The enormous beams, golden yellow, criss-crossed overhead, knotty pine walls and gray-boulder fireplace made it feel so comforting. The cabin had be redecorated, right out of some fashionable “country home” magazine...forest green/dark blood red plaid, accents in navy blue and cream. The work of Lynn Ann, I guessed, Uncle’s new girlfriend.
I found the master bedroom and there were 2-folded towels stacked at the foot of the 7-pillow-stacked bed. Radisson samples...shampoo, conditioner, lotion. L.A. again.
After a quick shower and a survey of just how many mosquito bites I had, I threw on a sleeveless tee and wrapped a sarong around my hips, letting my wet hair fall where it may. Out on the deck, I sat in the swing and had a smoke. I could not see the lake down the hill. The deck light reflected off the soaring trunks of the white paper birch trees and a few close pine trunks, branchless for 20 feet high. It was silent. Deadly silent. Too quiet for a girl that lives in pink mercury vapor and has neighbors all over the river valley. Not a dog barked. Neither did I hear any animal scamper. I was a little unsettled. Where in the world was I? And why did all of the darkness of the Great North Woods seem so claustrophobic?
The morning sun glazed across the bed.
[More to come.]
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[Sorry I lost this story. Here are a few clues:]
1.I spent a lot of time trip-tropping in platform shoes (I forgot my sneakers) back and forth on the rooty, ferny footpath to Uncle’s new house. I only slipped about 4 times...ballerina-stepping helped.
2.The first morning while uncle was washing the breakfast dishes, his back to gf and me, he told gf “My niece is a terrific artist and a writer too. “ gf gave me one of those up-and-down, you-ain’t-shit looks and said, “Oh really.” Which means she had decided to challenge/despise me right off the line. She prefaced every sentence with…”In Washington we…”In Seattle we…but what is really weird about her is her hair. It’s bright auburn (Clariol #496, I think), styled into an above-the-shoulder pageboy, and it NEVER moves. Wow! Her hair is a helmet. Guess she needs it.
3.I spent most of my time in a rowboat on the lake and at a little ya-hey-dere bar in the U.P. with my new friend, this man He illuminated me.
4.One of my cousins introduced me to The Violent Femmes!!! A wonderfully snotty, me me me band from Wisconsin.
5.I had Thai food up there! Amazing since there are only about 9 stores/restaurants in a 50 mile radius!
Alex risked his life to get a U.P. rock for my Lucy/Desi rock garden back at home. THANX!
6.My cousins did a very grand fireworks show over the lake...oooooooooooo....aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh....YESSSSSSS!
7.There was an endless parade of Wisconsin made-with-love food. I couldn't zip up my skirts. Argh.
8.Traffic was as crazee on the way home, so I ditched the Interstate and hit every little Wisconsin small town on the back roads. Flags everywhere, flowers blooming, children goofing off...basically I found hometown America in all of its refreshing glory.
As to that man I “escaped” from, well, nothing has changed. He still wants to weld that ring to my finger and I am still pulled toward all of the happiness, love, and strangulation he has to offer.
