Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A space for baby

The dream of a tented room on our porch.



I have this idea, or perhaps it's just a dream, of constructing a little separate space for the baby at our cabin. The thing is, with the cabin being just one room, it's hard to tiptoe around August when he's napping or sleeping. Having a domicile with just one room is of course what humans have generally had throughout history. But what they didn't have was the movie "Ghostbusters" waiting for them to watch after their baby falls asleep at 7pm. 

We have a screened in porch that generously runs the length of the cabin. We sit there on rainy days or at night, watching rain or fireflies, we sit there when a random horsefly comes after us to bite off chunks of our flesh. It is a respite from the outdoors while being cantilevered into it.

Imagine a crib-sized canvas tent draped from the ceiling, all rugged yet romantic with nostalgia for those days in the 70's when my family all went car-camping together. Imagine a baby tucked into it for his nap, with sunlight dappling the ceiling, or tucked in for the night hearing the creek below whooshing and gurgling. 

On an off-chance I asked my father if they still had our giant family-sized tent from the 70's, tucked away somewhere in their attic or basement. And yes, it still exists, in that memory repository dubbed the attic! He brought it to me, un-shook out so we accidentally loosed a pile of mouse droppings and dust on our floor. It's gigantic, weighs as much as a piece of heavy furniture, and I have no idea how I'm going to make it work. But I am going to because we have had too many "fails" with bringing August up there, and I refuse to give the space up for some standard 2 bedroom Catskills cottage with no creek whooshing and gurgling below.

In a few weeks I will let you know how the dream pans out.


Top photo courtesy me, and the beautiful shot of sunlight streaming into a casually strung up tent is unknown but found on the Coryander Friend tumblr


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