At the Hideout: Memories of a Chocolate-Cake-Filled Life

My coffee is dark and chocolaty this morning. I am curled up on my neighbors’ loveseat. They are away for a week and I am tending to things; mostly, having this quiet, just up-the-road-space is tending to me.

Their house is about a quarter mile up our dirt road, just past the goats and Daniel’s converted-goat-shack-home. I have been walking up here, sneaking away, all week long; and last night, I could not soften the urge to stay here the whole night. It seems that sleeping in any particular place, has more to do with waking up there. That’s what I was going for, and that was the desire I could not curb: I wanted to wake up, watch the sunrise in silence, and sit all morning, writing, drinking my coffee, and looking around.

It is true, this option is available to me every day, but it has a different flavor than waking up alone in your own place (however relative that idea is) – and that is the thing I have been missing.

So. Last night after dinner, I sat in my room until everyone had retreated to their rooms for the night. I waited until I could no longer hear footsteps walking along the gravel path, or antique door hinges talking into the night. I gathered a few things, my toothbrush, eye glasses, camera, and my favorite book. I am like a clever-fourteen-year-old version of myself, sneaking out and sleeping in the tree house, returning in the morning before anyone wakes up. Over the hood of my down coat, I fixed my headlamp and walked to the kitchen. I ground coffee, poured the sweet smelling grounds into the press and added it to my bag. I poured cream into a small jar. I flipped the light and walked out the door.

There is something about being secretive that appeals to me. Quite often, I find myself not wanting to say where I am going or where I have been. Maybe it is because I live with so many people, a few in close proximity, and many more on the ranch, short distances from each other. Maybe it is because I actually prefer to be alone for 80% of my days; a percentage and a feeling that I find astounding and at times, a bit shameful.

After years of living with other people, anywhere from twelve to just one other, I did manage to live alone for about a year. It took me six months to build up enough courage to give up my large upstairs room at the old Victorian on Commercial Street, where I had lived for 18 or more months with a rotating crew of folks. During that decision period, I was already gone in many ways. I worked all the time and would catch myself avoiding going home. I paid $100 each month to set-up an art studio in another friend’s house, likely, just so I could have another place to be. I really liked my roommates, so why was I staying in my office until 7pm or sketching ideas at a house across town that could have been sketched in my own living room?

It was not that I was scared to live alone – unfortunately, to me, it was something else. It was the idea of living alone that seemed wrong to me; an idea that in theory I did not believe in. I had spent my whole life living with other people – and by living, I mean with intertwined lives and purposes, sharing meals and responsibilities, sharing conversation and parties, cups of tea and occasionally, kegs of beer. Every summer from the time I was twelve, I spent at camp – and even during college and into my twenties I worked at summer camps or as a whitewater guide. These were book-ended communities, formed for specific purposes and most of us, exploding out to the edges of this country or even across an ocean to another one for the nine or so months in between.

My time in Portland was different from all of these experiences. Over the course of my first three and a half years there, I lived at four different addresses, in four different parts of the city. The first two were with one other female roommate, the third with a boyfriend, and the fourth was the large house on Commercial with 3-4 others. Each of those felt less like the cultivating of community I had felt in my younger experiences, as we were all on our own paths throughout the day and there was never a clear or counted upon meeting point. There was rarely sharing of meals – even with the boyfriend, our schedules quickly became opposite and we saw each other late in the evening if at all.

While I was staying late in my basement office, I began to examine why I didn’t want to go home, but also why I couldn’t make the decision to live on my own. Some of it was money, a thought I despised – I didn’t want to live with others just to save on rent. I wanted to live with others because I wanted to build a home together, share meals and cups of coffee. The problem was, we all lived together to save on rent; and, so we could live in a house with a yard instead of a white-walled apartment complex. The other problem was that I was finding in myself that I didn’t have the energy or interest to build community in my home – especially being a teacher and cultivating a community in my classroom and with my colleagues on a daily basis. It seemed that what I really wanted was to live by myself.

It just seemed so wrong to have all that space to myself, all those kitchen utensils, and all that energy usage. It felt wrong to contribute to the part of our culture that says we are all entitled to these things; that independently, we can own cars and houses and cookware and not have to share them with the neighbors. We don’t even have to know the neighbors. Still, I was sick to my stomach for wanting that exact thing. I wanted to come home after work, park my bike in the basement or my car in the drive, walk up my steps, not talk to anyone, and make dinner in the kitchen, alone. Maybe I would take a bath. Maybe I would sit on the couch and read a book all night. Maybe I would talk on the phone to friends in distant zip codes. It was a secret life that I didn’t have to share with anyone. I. Loved. This. And, each day, no matter how good it tasted, it felt indulgent like a three-layer piece of rich chocolate cake. I ate this chocolate cake every day, like a woman who had starved herself of sweets for decades – tentatively at first, with remnants of shame, until I could devour it with nothing but great pleasure.

The apartment, as a structure, was a dream. It was a long corridor of perfection on the inside, and a mediocre four-plex on the outside. I lived on the second floor with windows that lined all the exterior sides. It had wood floors for sliding in my socks, a large bedroom with two slender windows; one that I could climb out of and onto the roof just like my childhood bedroom on the farm. The living room was spacious and open, with only my large work table, boxes of art supplies, a stack of books and a small couch. The living room spilled into the kitchen that had tile counter-tops and space enough to twirl while baking pies. The bathroom had a tub for lounging and window ledges for candles. Off the kitchen was a door that led to the back porch; a dilapidated two-by-four structure that was encased by old storm windows and a layer of chipping paint. This porch was the selling point, and it is where I ended up spending countless hours, writing, watching the rain come down, the squirrels jump through the trees, the trees change through the seasons, and the sun rise each day.

I borrowed furniture, a tea kettle, and cookware – maybe as my way of saying, “This isn’t how I will live forever.” Or maybe, as a way to incorporate other people into this space, as it seemed too overwhelming for me to fill all of it with things that belonged only to me. There was also a form of inter-dependence about borrowing a loveseat and casserole dishes that made me feel like I was keeping my foot in the door, so I didn’t fall off the edge into absurd independence. Other people might do this by finding a therapist, or working with a yoga teacher or being part of a supper club. I just borrowed couches.

And who knows what does what in the world, but it seems to me that that piece of cake apartment on 9^th Street catapulted me into this next phase of my life. Whether it was all that space to be alone, to do as I pleased, and on nights where I felt trapped in my aloneness (like all of a sudden waking up to a body that had gained 15 pounds from too much chocolate cake) I could go on a walk around the neighborhood, among other tactics. Maybe it was the rhythm of nightly baths and mornings spent watching the sun rise beyond Mount Hood from the porch, wrapped in blankets, writing. Whatever it was, once I had made the next series of decisions in my life, I was ready to meet them.

I left that decadent apartment last April and moved in with my friend Ami and her two children for two months. There, I lived in the sunroom with glass French doors on the east and west sides, opening to the kitchen and the back deck. The walls were painted a bright turquoise. From this room, I tasted again what it was like to live with people I loved, to share coffee in the morning, to play legos at the breakfast table. Ami let me stay for free so I could save money for my unknown, career-less future, which was the beginning of a huge leap for me in accepting and receiving others freely given generosity. I didn’t have anything to prove, and I was in a situation where I had to accept other’s kindnesses – quite similar to how I continue to find myself here in Big Sur.

As I roll along in my 29^th year, having lived so many different ways and in different structures, I am finding that there is not just one that is right, and even my favorite ones are not right all the time. Secretly grinding coffee and sneaking up the road to the vacationing neighbors’ is a fine way to deal with my desire for a place of my own in the early mornings. I find, it only makes me better during the rest of the day – better at participating in life on the ranch, where giving and accepting kindnesses is the name of the game.