A Treehouse, a little you-and-me house

Contrary to the title, there’s nothing square about the two Laurens who recently visited Fern Forest for two nights in the Treehouse. The singer-songwriter (we’ll call her US Lauren) and her English gal pal drove up from Brooklyn for a respite from the holiday bustle of the city. Their rental car nearly made it up the snowy driveway, but US Lauren thought it better to park at the bottom of the hill and tromp up in her Chuck Taylors. US Lauren always wears Chuck Taylors and has them in a variety of colors, and I enjoyed seeing a pair parked in the mudroom while she was here. US Lauren is an indy girl, and you can categorize that as an independent woman or a musician who plays indy music. By indy I mean she’s willing to play a small venue with ten people, including the bartender and the sound man (but of course she’d rather play for a bigger crowd). She’s also from Indianapolis, which makes her capital “I” Indy. Although she was born in London, English Lauren’s parents are American, whic...

When Nikki and Elliott arrived at Fern Forest on Saturday night, they both looked the worse for wear. Friday was Nikki’s birthday, and she had celebrated hard at a club in Manhattan, so hard that she didn’t realize until the next morning that her wallet had been stolen. She lost cash, her driver’s license and her debit card. By the time she reported the theft, her debit card had been charged hundreds of dollars. So far, turning 22 had not been auspicious for her. Elliott wanted to treat his flatmate to a birthday weekend, so he rented a car—a spiffy red Mustang convertible. It was 20 degrees at Fern Forest and snowing, and the Mustang was not equipped with snow tires. So Elliott parked the vehicle, top securely up, at the foot of the steepest part of the driveway, and he and Nikki hiked up to the house. They arrived in late afternoon, and we gave Elliott a glass of cider. All Nikki wanted was a nap, but she managed, sleepy-eyed, to let us know she’s from Glasgow, alth...

The Treehouse has had guests who’ve brought us gifts —homemade granola, pickles, jellies, English teas. But Elliot and Phyllis are the first guests who brought us ourselves. We thou ght they were kidding when they emailed from their house half a mile down Quaker Street and asked if they could book a night in the Treehouse. How silly, I thought. They have a beautiful barn that they could use for a campout. But it was their anniversary and almost Elliot’s birthday, and they didn’t want to make their own breakfast and their own bed. They wanted to be treated. Sure, I said. But you’d better come check out the ladder to the sleeping loft first. They’re septuagenarians in pretty good shape, but Elliot has tricky knees, and the weather looked to be sloppy—and a bit icy. But Phyllis said, no, they’d brave it. I like that attitude. Even though they’ve known each other for fifty years, it was their tenth anniversary. They met at a party, but it was crowded and no place to talk. “Meet me in...

There’s nothing like young love. Treehouse guests Kristin and Justin proved that when they came for an overnight two summers ago on their way from Buffalo to Maine. As they plotted their route from Vermont on circuitous two-lane roads, Justin said, “We’ll get there.” Kristin replied, “I believe in us.” Her belief paid off. Shortly after their second visit to the treehouse, Justin asked Kristin to marry him. She said yes, of course, because she’s a clever girl. And sweet. And creative. And good looking. They married in a barn in Buffalo with a stuffed fox watching over the nuptials and lots of fun and love showered on them by good friends. Stan, who taught them graphic design at Buffalo State University, officiated the ceremony, and Justin and Kristin thanked him by giving Stan and his wife Diane a couple nights at Fern Forest Treehouse. Stan and Diane were thrilled. So were we. Meeting Stan and Diane was like watching PBS and the travel channel and reading National Geographic a...

Fern Forest Treehouse has been quiet this late fall. The leaves have fallen and we've had a bit of snow. But now the ground is littered with dry leaves. I like this time of year when I can see deeply into the woods behind the house and study the stone wall for rocks that need rolling back into place. I've still got work to do to clear the gardens before snowfall and will tend to that after today's holiday. On this Thanksgiving H and I are grateful for all the folks who have shared their lives with us over the last year and a half. You hail from Germany, Thailand, Australia, England, France, Sweden, El Salvador, Canada, Panama, Portugal, Turkey, Afghanistan, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and all across the United States. You are musicians, social workers, neuroscientists, athletes, college professors, artists, computer programmers, opera singers, health care workers, environmentalists, architects, psychotherapists, organic farmers, publishers, and business people. We've...

What is all the hoopla about Descartes? Blake is the third philosophy PhD (he has two years to go at Rutgers; see earlier blog for visit of philosophy profs) who claims Descartes as his favorite philosopher. “Favorite” seems like a rather pedestrian word to associate with such a high thinker. Descartes, just so we’re on the same page, is the “I think, therefore I am” guy whose roots lie with Aristotle and St. Augustine. He also founded analytic geometry, by the way, and insisted on the absolute freedom of God’s act of creation. Descartes was no lightweight. Blake and his family arrived at Fern Forest on a chilly Friday night in the midst of a nor’easter. It’s not winter yet in Vermont, but there was a deluge of rain and pretty stiff winds. We told Blake, his wife Ruth and their four-year-old twins that they were welcome to camp out in the guest room of the main house, but Ruth, who is from Thailand, said they were up for the adventure. They had skidded on slick roads in their old Suba...

Rottweilers used to make me nervous, but Titan has changed things. Titan brought his friend Roberto for a couple nights in the treehouse. They are Airbed and Breakfast hosts in Medford, Massachusetts, where Roberto decorated the Victorian house in a manner David Bromstad might approve. The house is surrounded by gardens Roberto spends a couple hours a day tending. Pass under the rose-vined arbor and wind down the stone path guarded by statuary and urns spouting ivy. Or go inside and sit in the green room with violet draperies or perch on the red leather Elvis couch in the media room. Take a shower with orchids nodding overhead. Have breakfast at the kitchen nook and watch the morning news on the television bolted to the wall. Afterward, stroll down to Tufts University or take a bus to Harvard, MIT, BU or BC. I can’t wait to go there. So what in the world was Roberto doing booking two nights in a treehouse? “I needed a vacation,” he said. I can only imagine how busy he must be with gue...

“Do you do yagli gures?” I asked Ozan. Ceren giggled. Then she corrected my pronunciation. Ozan blushed. I’d been doing a little research before breakfast. “No,” Ozan said. “It is a traditional sport, done only in certain areas of Turkey.” H looked puzzled, so I said, “Yagli gures is oiled wrestling.” “It’s disgusting,” Ceren said. “They grab each other.” Well, I thought that was the point. I can’t help flashing back to the fireplace scene in Women In Love with Alan Bates wrestling nude with Oliver Reed—but I digress. Ozan is more interested in football—soccer where he comes from. For the past two years Ceren (the C in Turkish is pronounced J) and Ozan have lived in Montreal, where she goes to school for photography and he works in a French restaurant. But they call Istanbul home. H was a history major in college and says Istanbul used to be Constantinople. Ozan adds before that it was Byzantium. As in Yeats’s poem, “Sailing to ...