Cabin Notes: a space to call one's own

October 2, 2024

It was stormy, a light drizzle and an intermittent wind, and I walked out of the forest into our open valley. There is the occasional tree in the valley, planted around the houses long ago when they were built, but otherwise, it’s clear. I was sugarfooting down the steep dirt drive, letting each foot take purchase, when I noticed the leaf. Not a leaf, but the leaf, because this leaf was special. In the open, from high, high above, taller than any tree even grows, I watched it flutter down to the ground. I watched for a good thirty seconds as this leaf fell from the treeless sky, for all its quaking (it was an aspen leaf after all) it fell more or less straight down from seemingly nowhere. Of course it fell from a talon that had taken it on a ride and of course it fell after being carried on just the right wind before being tossed aside and of course there was a logical reason this singular leaf fell from the clouds where it did not belong, but it didn’t make it feel any less extraordinary to watch a single leaf fall from the open sky. I watched it fall all the way to the dirt, where it sat there gleaming yellow among rocks and pebbles, a lone leaf on the ground. I picked it up, looked at it, and looked up. Nothing up there, as suspected.

This was an extraordinary leaf, and I should treat it as such. 

So I did. I brought it inside, and now it’s sitting on our kitchen counter as a reminder: a leaf can come from anywhere. 

The Log

• I actually had a little laugh reading this Signs of Colon Cancer in Young People article because it’s basically all the symptoms of being a new mom. How fun. TMI? No. NEI. Never Enough Information.

• Ben Goldfarb’s writing practice

• Bonne Maman has released their 2024 advent calendar, and I just can’t recommend it enough if you love tiny packaging and jam. It is an actual delight. We use the tiny mason jars as shot glasses and if that isn’t cabincore, I don’t know what is.