Pinehaven

© William G. Schmidt
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Introduction: Sometimes one finds home . . .

"As for amenities, there were few. No city water or sewer, an old furnace which seemed bent on belching the last warm smoke it might ever produce, no air conditioning, and a leaky basement. As for the price, it was more than we could afford. In other words, it was perfect."

Chapter One: It can kindle the soul . . .

"If a fire can warm the body up close, can ignite the romantic moment, at a distance, on a cold and snowy night, it can kindle the soul. I felt the immediate warming there, at my darkened bedroom window, and I stood as equally in the fire's glow had I stood before it and felt the embers. Between we two, the contrast of the steel blue field, the wind blowing the smoke away from me, was enough to bring life to the blaze and reincarnate lost souls. I do not know that fire will be the end of the world so much that it was the life-giving beginning. Surely we were born of the stars and we might find our end yet in the coldness of burnt-out space. I am as convinced of entropy as of isolation; it is our nature to be alone."

Chapter Two: There is an ageless song being played . . .

"If the bricks protect this house, they also give it a special sound on windy days. It all depends on the direction from which the wind comes. There are a number of special directions, coupled with sufficient speed, that make the bricks "sing" . It can be an eerie sound in the middle of the night or positively soothing when I am sitting here at my desk writing. It is perhaps the sharp corners of the brick that does this, that causes the wind to whistle and moan, even whisper if it's just right. These songs change in pitch and intensity, playing a song that is as natural as any, making use of sharp edges to give rise to mellow tunes. It cannot be predicted, for days I expect to burst into wind song do not while those I'd never expect a whimper from play the most beautiful of melodies. Maybe the combination of wind direction and intensity must be coupled with some certain relative humidity or temperature? I have not figured it out and don't hope to."

Chapter Three: Song of the stars, song of the sky . . .

"On the other side of the road, the corn stubble talks. It has been cut for five months, has faded to a light and gentle brown, and from a distance might suggest a bearded field, not recently shaved. It is not the wind so much as the sun, I think, that is bringing this field to life. It snaps and pops reminding me of pine cones opening in the sun. It might be the shredded leaves lying on the soil, but the corn exhibits a similar sound, too, when it was green. A corn field, it seems to me, is a noisy place to be, especially at night. The long, narrow leaves will move, will rub against one another, will slide with the slightest provocation, perhaps no more than gathering dew. There, the scale is tipped, and the lanceolate leaf gives a little, and like a bow on a string, pulls slowly across another leaf, plays a lullaby of the ages. Have we city-dwellers forgotten that delicate sound of a corn field on a calm night?"

Chapter Four: Stand sentinel now, if ever . . .

"If spring is a rebirth, it is also another year. One more added on, one more lived, one less to go. You only get to see so many of these in a lifetime so you'd better enjoy each one. Like the comet, get outside and take a look and then look some more. Don't miss anything; this might be your last chance. Who knows? The roadside is littered with the debris of time."

Chapter Five: Nature is not so peaceful as one might hope . . .

"We too easily, I think, expect our life, our things, to be replaceable. And yet, as convinced I am that things do not make the man, know that things create our home, make our memories real, give us connections without with we simply drift an uncharted course. Take away a sailor's boat and what does he have but the whole ocean in which to tread water? We cannot tread forever, cannot rebuild the boat without materials, cannot ever have hope of the same boat with the same worn handrails, the same torn sails, the same feel to its steering. We need home as much as we need self."

Chapter Six: Such promises written in light . . .

"I watched this through the weekend, saw the first dot of stain soak paint as blood fills a bandage from behind. Now, two days after opening of the wound, the chimney is speckled with muted reds and browns, carrying a rusty trickle through the wall, marking another failure. Patching the roof has not helped and stain-block paint brushed onto the wall has only covered past transgressions while it remained dry. Now all flood forward, carried by the rainwater, and the hundred last failures come into view. There is no way of erasing the past, nor any way of covering it up."

Chapter Seven: Nothing so marvelous as the seed . . .

"I woke up several nights ago, not the first with this experience, but the first where I have been wholly awake and aware of what was transpiring. I awoke to talking, I thought, like voices on a phone perhaps, not here in my room but elsewhere in the house. I hate to use the word "ghost" though I am sure some nights the Milkman haunts. I know that the spirit of the word is essentially correct."

Chapter Eight: Shades of gray . . .

"The greatest revenge is a good life, an enjoyable life, time on one's hands to smell the roses. As I walk back down the road, I see Pinehaven shining in the cool morning sunlight. The grass is damp, the sky is blue and clear, and the wind is calm. It is enough that it is, that I am here. My own decisions come easily, mixed with the experience of a few decades and guided by that inner voice."

Chapter Nine: Let me keep the story clear and pure . . .

"The lives that have passed within these walls of Pinehaven intrigue me, that we have all inhabited the same space, made our individual lives within the same structure, that we have chosen here . It is as close as we have in becoming one. In the century since this structure was built, fully five families have carried out their day-to-day existence here. To my knowledge, only the final two remain."

Chapter Ten: The Earth speaks in strange tongues . . .

"These old floors, having supported the weight of various generations for a century, are dry and warped. What sap ran through their fibers is long gone, dissolved into time, and the boards are not at all pretty to look at and therefore thankfully covered with carpeting. The floor boards might be made to look spectacular, might make Pinehaven a true show place, but it would require great amounts of muscle and time, the one of which I do not have and the other which I care not to give so freely to such tasks."

Chapter Eleven: The meaning of vision . . .

"Beyond the tree, the sky is leaden, and the whites and grays swirl with the snow flakes that mix with the rain. You might do a painting in this alone, mix your oils from black and white only, sparingly choose your shades of whites, touching and spreading the black onto the canvas with a jaundiced hand, being sparse and spare as winter itself, giving not a single color to the canvas but them all."

Chapter Twelve: Imagination soars above all . . .

"While my hair catches the dew, individual strands glisten with the weight and, at last, the drop falls across my face. It is cool, not cold, and like a refreshing tear of relaxation after tension, I feel the load fall. Else it falls off my nose with an itch and I cannot help but lift my hand and brush the remnants away. In a moment all that remains is the sensation of pleasure, of an itch scratched, of a problem at last solved."

Epilogue: It is enough to live the days . . .

This chapter deals with the "technical" details of Pinehaven's past and a look toward the future.

What Pinehaven isn't is a book that fits the common mold. It's a love story of place, of time, of simplicity. Pinehaven is proof that the old ideals are still alive at the edge of the millennium..