The Grant

Clara in the Swift Diamond River, about a mile from the cabin.  We swam there most days.

Being in the New Hampshire mountains has been one of my most life-giving things for about 20 years.  But at the end of the Sabbatical we went up north.  Way up north.  North of the White Mountains, past Berlin and Gorham and past Errol.  We were up in the country where Maine, New Hampshire, and Canada get closer and closer together.

Our friend Stu went to Dartmouth, and as an alumnus, he has access to cabins on The Second College Grant, land given to Dartmouth College by the state in 1789.  It is different up there.  You don't see people.  You sit by quiet rivers and hear the world thinking.  You splash in noisy streams making their way over rocks and all the while you know no one is nearby.  It's you, the land, the wildlife, and the air.

Each day I would spend time on the porch reading and writing, and each day, we'd have adventures. The only negative was that I was getting serious headaches and had fevers off and on (it turns out I had lyme disease).  There was a big woodstove and up there, sometimes you light a fire in the stove in July.

The depth of the quiet is what makes it so different.  With it comes a sense that the world is not there for you, and especially it is not there for the taking.  Somehow in the quiet, you know, "This has its own life."  It exists for itself, and for God, and for a wild beauty that is a mystery.

Stu passed out on the porch.  This place is a place you can rest.

The weird sheep's head on the wall.

Cards at night by candle and gas lamp

Clara and I did a lot of work on the porch.
She on art, me reading and writing.

The Cabin

The outhouse

Wise Women on the Water

The sisters