Sitting in our cottage 鈥� the six-foot-square red one in the backyard, with the pointy roof and two screened flip-up sides, I am as near to vacation as possible on the weekends for a working girl 鈥� or working woman. (Some days I don鈥檛 know which I am. Some days a girl looks in the mirror and, surprised, finds a grandmother. And some days that grandmother, weary from toenail to tooth, looks in the mirror, sees truth, but wonders when the girl left. So how to tell?)
The cottage, like our GraceCat, has various names, depending on who鈥檚 talking. Raspberry (or Rose) Cottage, Red Shed, Prayer Cabin, Gibson Gazebo, She Shed, Girl Shack. I could even call it Flower Bower, because of its origin as the pay booth for the outdoor gardening centre at the Canadian Tire store down the highway. When the store re-located, the brown well-weathered wooden shed didn鈥檛 suit their new look.
The moment the Preacher and I saw it there, with the 鈥淔or Sale, $250鈥� sign on its side, I knew it suited us just fine. We settled it beside the raspberry patch, between the lilacs and spruce; cleaned it up, painted it white inside and Cranberry Red out. I furnished it with some favourite things: two chairs and a small table, flower photos from an old calendar, a candle or two, gerbera daisies in coloured bottles and a variety of signs. The cottage makes me smile now.
The signs inside remind me of God鈥檚 prescription for stress-removal. 鈥淏e still and know that I am God,鈥澛� and 鈥淧rayer changes things,鈥� and 鈥淥ne is nearer God鈥檚 heart in a garden than anyplace else on earth.鈥� When I enter, I see 鈥淎H THE LIFE鈥� spelled out in white letters on black tiles, and despite what I read in my news feeds, I believe it. That in our quiet spaces, wherever we find them, removed from routine and our pressure cooker world even for an hour or two, Jesus Christ, whose name is Life meets and refreshes us - when we invite him.
Your concept of a holiday place may differ, but whenever I can, I escape to our little red cottage in the backyard. To pray. To read. To write. To chat, or snack, or pray with whoever joins me there. To sit and wonder, absorbing birdsong and fountain babble.
I recall places like that as a child. A sitting rock beside the Pacific inlet just beyond our backyard; a spruce grove almost in our backyard, a swing under the weeping willow in our side yard and my own aqua attic bedroom overlooking the whispering walnut in our front yard. In those places, God seemed closer.
Others may travel, some for hours, to enjoy their vacation get-aways, and some, to work themselves exhausted in order to enjoy them more. I鈥檓 satisfied with, and grateful for, the wee cottage just a few steps beyond my back door.
