The best house I ever saw was unfinished, a spindly structure
constructed of scrap materials: wood, metal, old window panes, glass.
There was probably nothing safe about it and I guess, in retrospect, it
can't have been legal either. But this was the 70s. The shell of a house
was way back in the woods, down a rocky dirt track, not far from my
mom's friend's teepee.
I've always been the jealous type, wanting to live in houses that
were not mine, not possible, not a part of my destiny, except in my
dreams, where structures grow exponentially, huge spindles and rickety
hanging walkways, dangling bridges and rooms built on top of rooms only
accessible by ladders, or tiny, twisting one person paths made from
weathered ocean wood and frayed rope.
I love the delicacy of these structures. They are magic like fairy
dust, like a pretend childhood lived among trees and animals. They are
the tree houses of your imagination, the great big warehouses lined with
high catwalks, and the castles of a hippie who no one has
ever seen in person. She lives on the edge of the blueberry bogs,
beneath giant evergreens and near overgrown bushes of salal. There are
wet ferns and slugs, mustard plants and magic mushrooms on her land.
Way in the back, behind tiny unlikely little cabins with heavily
sweatered salt-of-the-earth college students is The Octagon, jutting up
so it looks to be hanging from the branches of the trees that circle the
structure like old women. Dark wood and glass, some of it colorful,
mosaics hidden under the fallen needles of the old ladies' baskets, you
will find a small door. And, once entered, the world will expand like a
shimmering cathedral of wooden beams, platforms, half stairs and open to
the sky windows in the shape of the structure itself.
No one will be in The Octagon when you venture inside, and the tiny
solar candles will make it seem to glow internally. So much so, that you
will never want to leave. And even years later, when no one you know
remembers the woman, her land, the bogs or the structure, you will feast
on the memory of its impossible rustic beauty.
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