With no family waiting for me, a truly unlimited amount of work to do at the school, and only a dark, cold shack to sleep in, it makes sense that I spend most of my time at the school. I wake up around 6:30 to a cold room where the fire has gone out hours ago, and the warmth has seeped through the floor and is gone. I jump up, squiggle my feet into my shoes, grab my coat, and walk to school. It takes about forty seconds to walk that far.
After the kids are gone for the day, and the custodian has cleaned and vacuumed, I stay at the school, usually sitting at my desk reading books or writing papers for class. I email, talk to Wifey, surf the internet, make a dinner usually consisting of a frozen entree, some leftovers from home, or a can of something microwavable. With an unlimited amount of work to do, my quitting time is dictated by my level of exhaustion. I fight the sleepies for as long as I can, but when I recognize it is a losing battle, I call it a day.
I put on my bib overalls and heavy coat, put on my headlamp and gloves, and head home. I walk in and close the door behind me, and I am plunged into complete darkness. There are no windows other that some decorative ones in the door, and those I have covered, not wanting to advertise to every passerby whether I am home or not home. I reach for my headlamp to illuminate what is directly in front of me, and immediately set to work on a fire. Within about ten minutes I can get a fire fairly roaring inside the stove. It takes a little longer than that to heat the rest of the building.
The structure itself looks a little abominable from the outside. It is about three feet off of the ground, where most cabins are built right down on the ground. It has an interior loft, so it looks very tall from the outside with no windows to outline a first and second floor. I have heard it described by another as a big outhouse.
On the inside, it’s actually pretty cozy. Standing in the middle of the downstairs, the room is sixteen by sixteen. If your back is to the door, there is a woodstove across the room in the left hand corner. On the left wall is a make shift table of particle board perched on two black plastic saw horses. On the right wall is a queen sized bed that Wifey found for free on an internet based community sharing bulletin board. It’s pretty comfortable really. There are no sheets on it, only my mummy sleeping bag, my down pillow, and a rectangle Coleman sleeping bag that I use as a final cover.
In the far right corner there is an aluminum utility ladder propped against the wall that provides access to the loft. Up there is more empty space, which honestly, I like. It’s minimalism to the extreme. I have a cot up there with a thermarest. I have slept up there a couple of times because the heat lingers longer up there than down on the floor level. The only reason I don’t do it every night is because the cot is not as comfortable as the bed. I’ve thought about moving the bed up there, but it would be very difficult to get the queen bed up that aluminum ladder by myself.
So as the fire begins to warm the room from twenty below, to zero, to twenty above, I stand right up next to the stove where the warmth first starts to come through. I usually stand there with a book, reading from the light of my headlamp (ironically, I have been reading The Shack while standing in the shack). I have a Coleman fuel lantern, but it is difficult to start in extreme cold, so I do without it most of the time. As I can, I start peeling off layers: first my coat, then my overalls. I take my pillow and prop it up by the fire to warm. I hang my sleeping bag from a nail I’ve put in the ceiling so that it can warm. And this process takes about an hour to get to acceptable sleeping temperature.
After reassembling my bed, and giving the fire a final stoke, I pull off my shoes and slip into my sleeping bag fully dressed in jeans, socks, and fleece pullover. I set my Timex next to me to function as my only alarm clock. Hunkered down, I read for another couple of paragraphs until sleep takes me.
In the morning, I can sense to cold through all my layers. I know I have to make the journey from this sleeping bag to the school as short as possible. When I finally muster the resolve, I spring from my bag, squiggle back into my shoes without bothering to untie them, put on my watch, grab my coat and keys, and I’m out the door, not bothering to build a fire as it will be eighteen hours before I return.
Only a time or two have I gone over there at a reasonable hour, built a nice warming fire, and spent the evening reading in the quiet. But those two times have been nice. It is relaxing in a way that being at the school is not. Though the school is more comfortable by far, I cannot ever truly relax there. I am always conscious of my movements being observed by others. I am always on guard. Only in the cabin can a truly relax, and I don’t do that often enough.
