What would your cabin in the woods look like? Imagine. 

@Rawhead ‘s post about building fires in the summer, made me finally complete this draft post I’d been wanting to finish for some time now. The imagery and feels from his post, gave me just the right nudge.

If you’re a city dweller, do you sometimes wish you could retreat to your own cabin in the woods for a while? Especially if you live in a fast-paced, stressful city with a hectic job, do you wish that sometimes? To have just some precious few days, or even hours, to tune out the cacophony of the city, detox from social media, from our phones, and just be in a quiet place? What would that quiet place look and feel like? Where would it be located? By the sea? In the woods by the sea? In a desert? High up in the mountains? Or right on a cliff? What sounds would you hear? What animals would you see grazing off your front yard? What would you do there, in your cabin? Read? Cook? Sleep? Take walks? Meditate? Make fires? What would you cabin have? Spartan and minimal? Or country and cosy? How long would you stay? Would you bring others? 

My cabin in the woods would be somewhere in the archipelago of Sweden. Somewhere remote and quiet, yet not more than a day’s transport to the nearest city. There, I’ll be alone, and no one knows I am there. I’ll spend whole summer there probably - the silence takes time to seep in, within. The tall pine trees surround the cabin, sheltering me from the wind, frost and sun. Hidden from sight at the shore, but just a few minutes walk to the clear, almost glacial quality waters of the Baltic Sea. Every sunny morning, I jump into the waters to feel the chill of the waters, to wake up. Some days, I’ll fish, or hunt, or forage a bit around the island, trying to live off the land at least in some ways. Other days, I’ll just depend on my well-stocked larder - I am after all, a city boy, and have no interest in extreme survival games. My cabin is minimal, but comfortable - with just a bed, reading chair, writing table by the window, stove, fireplace. No electricity, no wifi, completely off the grid. During free time, after the chores are done, I’ll take walks in the pine forest. Pine cones and leaves softly crunching beneath my feet; the occasional passing bird chirp; sunlight dappling and dancing through the pine trees. Sometimes it rains, and I sit by the window, just watching and hearing the force of every single drop hit the cabin. The rain is my meditation. I’ll cook dinner outside, making my own fire, and eat before it gets dark. After dark, I snuggle into my cabin, with a book, a cup of warm tea, and read myself to sleep, with dreams of dark nights and bright moons, glimmering off the still waters, mysterious and intriguing. On full moon nights, unable to resist the call of the wild, I walk out of my cabin, and jump into the black hole of the sea, stark naked, primal and caveman-like, hoping to be swallowed by the abyss, to lose myself and disintegrate into Mother Nature, but finding myself surfacing, gasping for breath and life, being awed by the silver moon, and then just floating on the surface, womb-like, letting the moonlight bathe me in its all of its purity. 

That’s my cabin in the woods.