Most of my college breaks were spent at a cabin on the top of a mountain at the North Carolina/South Carolina border. A friend’s family had a timeshare, and she managed to secure it for spring and fall breaks most of the time, inviting a few friends. I was lucky to be part of that group for three and a half years, and I have fond memories of time spent away from the world, isolated in a large cabin with my closest friends.
The word “cabin” evokes a structure built by a woodsman, a sparse home where Lincoln is born and electricity doesn’t exist. This was not the case. The cabin was set on a hillside, had two floors, and despite its seeming isolation, had electricity, plumbing and three and a half television stations (thanks to it being situated at the top of the mountain). It was moderately more difficult to get to than your usual house, involving a one-lane gravel road that wound up the mountain, but besides that, the cabin was far from “roughing it.” The isolation, the setting, and the convenience of having a group of people share an entire house (for free) was the allure. It became natural that we would spend time there each break from school.
That said, it was a place I didn’t really belong. I found myself restless, a nuisance to everyone else who would settle in comfortably at some corner of the house and read. I was annoying, constantly asking people to play ping-pong, in need of activity, something to do. Being unplugged may have contributed to this–the internet has a way of sapping that energy and turning it into something else entirely: a frenetic batch of searching, consuming quick bits of media or reading an in-depth article. I wasn’t in need of the internet, I was in need of something to consume my time.
One or two of the days spent at the cabin would be used to travel somewhere. Pisgah National Forest, Hendersonville or Asheville were the destinations to choose from, and those days I can remember distinct images. Skipping stones on a stream at Pisgah, wandering around the Mast General Store in Hendersonville (and eventually buying a bottled Orange Crush), eating Mediterranean in Asheville. These are clear memories that I can possess.
The cabin is a different story. Everything blurs together in a mess of restless emotion, and I find myself remembering those times when I was the most annoying. I didn’t really belong in that setting, and the cabin, as a result, is a place that was never mine in any sense. It’s a place I’ll probably never return to, and the memories of it are so corroded that I can’t hold those either.
I find that as I’ve examined the chapters in my life, the words and images fade, not because of forgetfulness over time, but rather the pollution of those memories with emotional baggage and overanalysis. «»
