The Book Is Beginning

Gathering In The Cabin

“It is such an iconic fieldstone fireplace with a huge thick mantle that was once the plank of a ship. So that piece of wood has made some amazing journeys of its own.”
The picture above is of a sunset on Saddleback Island in Maine. While our story is set in a cottage with an interior more like that of an Indian house except for the fireplace, the surroundings are remarkably like what you see here.

The fireplace in my cottage was a symbol, visualized till now merely as a glowing fire casting its warm glow from a niche in the northern wall. These lines suddenly gave shape and form to the niche, the kunda in which the hearthfire burned.

This picture has led me to seek my path back to this iconic fictional cottage/lodge/cabin depending on where you stand and view it. It’s been several months since I felt the end of the book. We typically write the end before we work on the body of the story. As with everything I will ever write, the end is an unresolved cadence tinged with mystery, hope, poignancy, promise and the copper-pink of a Maine dawn - or any dawn for that matter. The circles on the hearthrug have fanned themselves outward to gather afresh at the shore beholding the row of pines. And they will move northwestwards, hug their favorite trees and disperse.
We are starting, let the first guest enter!

Where did it all start? First there was a tree that could have been birch or beech. As the locale opened itself to me through lucid dreams, the trees seemed to move within reach and reveal their details. There were indeed birch and beech trees, each distinctive in its pre-fall clothing. It was September and soon the colors of rust and flame would transform that copse into a beacon when it caught the sunbeams. But there was one special tree standing a little alone from the others, part of the circle but playing a distinctive role. It was a beautiful old elm that had escaped the elm disease that often swept through that area of Maine and brought down many members of the clan. And they were in awe of it.
To the south of this copse was the edge of the bay. The coastline curved away to the west and then meandered on in twists and turns.
The most enduring impression of this spot was of the sun setting over one of those indentations, sinking its orange bulk into the bay. But on this important occasion we were celebrating the hour before the sunset - by welcoming a group of guests to spend a night with us by the Hearthfire.

Footnote 1: Picture courtesy Kim Raikes, taken by her.

Footnote 2: This was written on 20th June 2018. Time and place have lost all the meanings we once ascribed to them. The apparent "timelessness" of a story that brought together unlikely seekers in an unlikely space, seems to have found its relevance now. There's a good chance I could actually complete it now as the events will no longer seem implausible.

Footnote 3: "The Book Is Ending" was written several months prior to this. They will now coalesce into a whole that one may not have visioned at that time