not always cottagecore

an honest peek into life in a remote forest cabin

I’ve been meaning to write this piece for a long time, but I’ve been struggling with how to write it without sounding like I’m complaining or whining. I don’t want to come off as ungrateful. I am deeply grateful and honestly very lucky to have found a cabin in the woods to rent and call home - these things are not easy to come by! But after a year and a half of full-time remote cabin life, I’ve realized it may not be for me anymore.

For context, I moved to here with my partner and our two dogs while I was in a state of immense grief, immediately after losing a parent in a very sudden fashion. And so initially, isolation is what I was seeking - I couldn’t bear the noises of the city anymore. I needed trees and owls and quietness and stars as I untangled and tended to the grief.

We hadn’t seen the place before we showed up just past sunset after an 8 hour drive in a Uhaul van on April first, 2022. This rickety old cabin is nestled on 2 acres up a dirt road on the mountainside. It has 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, unfinished wood shelving everywhere, no cupboards anywhere, paper thin walls and it’s completely surrounded by coniferous trees. There’s an old clawfoot tub with a window overlooking the woods, and a patio in the treetops off the bedroom - it was our dream to live somewhere like this.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau

Immediately, we were acquainted with the first sign of trouble, which took the shape of a family of mice who called the kitchen countertops home. Apparently the previous tenants weren’t tidy people, and so there was a serious mouse problem to tackle as we tried to unpack and settle in. One time, a mouse actually poked its little head out of the ceiling vent in the bathroom, directly above where I was having a bath at the time (it was alarming yet mildly adorable).

Once the mouse issue was under control, an enormous black bear broke into our freestanding garage and dragged 3 full garbage bags of trash into the woods beside our kitchen window. I watched him snack and sleep there all night - the dogs didn’t get to go outside for a “last call” potty break that evening. We now take better care of the garbage situation but it takes time and effort, since there are no garbage or recycling removal services here. I guess the previous tenants left their garbage on the back porch, so the bears considered this house to be their favourite all-you-can-eat buffet - and it was our job to teach them that it isn’t.

The last critter to really test my patience were the carpenter ants who showed up with a vengeance that first summer. They were absolutely unhinged - these behemoth ant armies took over the house within days and overstayed their welcome by a few weeks. We didn’t want to use chemicals to kill them because of our dogs, so we would manually squash each one with a shoe, which was an uphill battle and I hated doing it.

The cabin was full of hundreds of these things, drilling holes into the wood all hours of the day and night. They even got caught in the dogs’ tongues and gums, and it was difficult to pull them out, since their pinchers bit in so hard they’d stay nestled in (even if the rest of their body was removed). They would crawl into our bed and bite us on the arms and legs. The wolf spiders crawled into the bed, too - good thing we have a King sized mattress to accommodate everyone.

Overall that first summer was magical. We learned how to live among the creatures, and found our footing over and over as new challenges arose each day. We learned resilience and adaptability. It was beautiful in so many ways. I remember the garden we built which provided no food for us, but the rabbits and deer enjoyed it immensely. The wild strawberries and the campfires out back. The milky way. The creek and waterfall nearby, and spending afternoons on the lake. Laying in moss. But this post isn’t about the good stuff.

When the first winter came, my mental health took a sudden nosedive. The complete and utter darkness by the time I finished work at 5pm. Playing with the dogs in the pitch-black, snow-covered forest because they need the exercise even though I was terrified. The loneliness, the isolation. I spent my evenings alone working on my second book (mortal atlas) in an attempt to be productive and distract myself from the grief I had been frantically running from.

Often the power would go out, and I’d have no heat or internet - things got really cold real fast. When this happened I’d lay in bed under the duvet with both dogs keeping me warm, staring out the bedroom window until the power returned. Sometimes my little book light would be charged up, so I could at least read and penetrate the darkness with that and candlelight.

It’s difficult to fully express how it feels to spend every evening alone in a cabin in the impenetrably dark and looming woods. Something happens to the brain chemistry. I felt like I was going insane. I turned to wine and disassociation and other unhealthy habits. I’m grateful that I always had writing, which saved me in many ways. I’d wail and shriek and then I’d go numb. Repeat.

I didn’t know how to process the grief and loneliness all at once. I’d call friends and family but they felt so far away. I deeply craved the ability to walk outside my house to see, hear and smell things besides snow - people, food, music, life. The forest was eating me alive during that dark winter. I howled and the snow said nothing back.

Other things I hadn’t considered might be difficult about remote cabin life, but I do find to be a challenge include the availability of diverse restaurants and groceries. I think it’s amazing how in a city, you can eat incredible food from anywhere in the world, any day of the week. Here, you take what you can get as far as the 3 grocery stores and the few restaurants that do grace the streets (a thirty minute drive away).

Availability of household items too - for instance one morning we woke up to a completely dead fridge. Deceased. We lost all of our food but even worse, it would take 7 days to get the new fridge due to our remote location. So we stocked up on non-perishables and food that could survive in a Yeti cooler, which was disruptive to the workweek to say the least. It’s nearly impossible to find furniture.

Another thing is that we get our water from a spring nearby. I find this to be a beautiful thing, and possibly something that adds years to my life (spring water, the elixir of eternal youth)! What’s tricky is the spring itself and the whole water setup is unreliable. Often I’ll try and do laundry, or dishes, or shower, or simply drink water and there is none. I’ll watch a neighbour with a quad rip down the road and disappear into the woods to try and fix the situation. Often it will get resolved, but sometimes not for a day or two. Recently a bear actually chewed through the water line, which was a brand of fiasco I never thought I’d have to deal with.

I feel as if the whole #cottagecore hashtag/trend is similar to the #vanlife one where people (myself included) tend to only show the positive, poignant, mystical and magical sides of the experience. Nobody wants to see someone with their “dream life” complaining about it. But I have to be honest in the fact that remote cabin life is not easy, and not always beautiful. It’s a lot of work. Nothing is handed to you. You have to be resourceful, and prepared, and nature will embrace you but it will also fight you. It’s not for everyone.

Lately I’ve been craving more balance, like instead of being a 7 hour drive away from a city maybe just 1 hour, or perhaps even living in a city?! A loud part of my intuition tells me that I’ve learned and experienced what I needed to here, and it’s time for an entirely new chapter. I have no idea what the next chapter will look like or when it will begin, and that’s okay. I am learning to surrender to the mysterious unfolding of life :)

☆.𓋼𓍊 𓆏 𓍊𓋼𓍊.☆

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”

- Mary Oliver

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

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