THE CABIN

"I was happy anywhere I could see the ocean..."

                           -Ai Yazawa

The cabin had stood for many years,like an old friend,  before  I  let it  go. Waiting  in the  seasons that pounded it with salt and spray. Scrub brush grew up between its toes, like seaweed snakes. The grass, never mowed, had seen many  footprints  wind their way to the grey , rocky shore.

Pebbly surf rattled and gurgled like  zombies trying to swim. Water was fresh and clear like some forgotten mountain pool. One fall the cabin  saw a grey whale  slide into the deep bays, searching for food, blowing spray.  Flapping and slapping the  still water. The cabin saw all of this and more. The whale, swam close to shore. Then swam away into the  deep.

 My father loved this cabin. He built it with  the help of friends, who drove down from way up island. They only asked for a place to pitch their tents. My mother fried up steaks on  the Coleman stoves with buttered potatoes and homemade bread  she had baked at home and brought with us. She  made walnut slice, chocolate cake and strawberries.

I liked to  stand on our favourite lookout, safe and strong, to watch  the skies change. 

Gordon beach was long and narrow. So many rocks and logs; places to  climb.   Hidden away alcoves. Only the sound of the water lap lapping.
At night, mist rolled in  as fog folded into the forest behind. It felt like I was in a fairy tale of seaweed creatures.

Each day, the hammers of the workmen  sounded long and loud, until light was gone. “Like being on Gilligan’s Island”, they would laugh,  stretching out to eat and listen for the night.  

My mother’s favourite thing was to climb up onto the hollow log which lived on the beach. It was a place for make believe. A place for  sea monsters to dwell. And those sea zombies I envisioned, had to have a place to live.

Many years later , the hollow log disappeared….. I missed it. That great beast  had reigned for years as king of the shore. The stuff of legends. 

I wondered how the sea zombies felt about that….

The cabin saw logs laid down for  its feet, and wood for its shoulders and head. I liked to  stand inside the hollow log, watching them build . I felt the shuffle of  rocks underneath, imagining  sea zombies were coming to get me. If  you sang inside the hollow log, you could summon the zombies with a special song.

When the tide was low, shallow wading pools appeared. My father could then  swing me over the shoreline. I’d scream. He’d catch me before I touched the water.

The end of day, everything turned to rose and gold. My mother and father sat on the half finished deck, as night fell and the ocean blazed pink. They were ever so quiet those times.

When  the cabin was almost finished,  the workmen decided to put in an extra large window in front.  Storms were  coming. Then  my father sat inside to see how big the ocean swelled. In a few weeks, the workmen packed up and went home. Leaving us, to the wind and tide.

Sometimes,  on those  last few years, my father would tell me ghostly sea stories, with zombies and kings and brave knights. My mother  would say she could feel the cabin floating.

We were safe inside with the fire burning in the old wood stove; hot tea in mismatched mugs, on the table. 

In the few years that were left, the cabin was glad to see us. There were stories, and walks on the beach. Special secret missions , looking for those zombies who had  kidnapped seaweed mermaids.The cabin watched over us. Until one day, my father could not go  any longer. When my mother and I would go those years after, I would play in the hollow log and see the cabin, with its big  eyes.

It spoke silently to me. And in the hush, I always felt my father there, and in years to come,  my mother, drifting along the shore. Together, hand in hand, in a place they loved so much……

 "Ocean separates lands, not souls..." -Munia Khan

Photographs 2022