"Give me darkness when I'm dreaming,

Give me moonlight when I'm leaving."

As a Gen-Xer, I was schooled in the belief that there were certain goals you were expected to meet in your life. College, marriage, homeownership, children. I knew from a young age that I was more comfortable with some of those than others. Fortunately, growing into adulthood, I met people that lived outside that box. I realized that those aims were a construct, and I was the one who determined the course of my life (thank you, Evergreen).

A drawing I made when we lived in the neighborhood with our friends.

By the time I reached my early 30s, my community of friends was undergoing massive changes. Everyone was getting married, building or buying houses, having babies. A group of us had lived in the same neighborhood, all renting our waterless cabins. We could show up without warning on each other’s doorstep. Have lake swimming and sauna evenings. Ski loops around the neighborhood. As our friends moved away, buying a place of our own began to appeal. And one day while we were out scouting for early season berries, we stumbled on a dirt track labeled with a hand printed sign: Goat Hill. At the end was a small log cabin tucked up in the woods on the hillside.

In true Fairbanks fashion, we knew the people selling the property, and the buying process moved quickly. Eleven acres of a mixed spruce and birch forest, a musical creek that could be heard from the porch, and a shabby, but fixable, off-grid cabin. As anyone who has gone through it knows, signing that stack of papers at your first house closing is heartburn inducing. We purchased picnic supplies and headed out to Goat Hill for our first meal in our new home.

It was late fall, and the thin daylight was blocked by the large white spruces surrounding the cabin. Inside it was very dark. We couldn’t turn on the power because the batteries hadn’t been charged in months. The window panes were hazy. What Alaskans call “sourdough specials”, two reused panels of glass caulked together with a fart in the middle. We looked at each other across the kitchen island. Neither of us needed to voice the words. What have we done? We didn’t return for two weeks.

Aurora over the cabin. Photo by Dave.

Life on Goat Hill was maddening and magical. For each day that the overflow made our driveway impassable with feet of slushy ice or I fought with the generator, or the woodstove, or spent hours splitting wood and hauling water. Another day would dawn and the property would remind me of its worth. Aurora dancing among the brilliant stars above our roof. Fox kits running around the yard stealing the dog toys. I returned from walks with stained fingers from grazing on berries. Bear, wolverine and lynx visits reminded us that we lived on the edge of the wilderness.

A young lynx watching us from next to our woodshed. Photo by Dave.

Goat Hill American Gothic. When the creek flooded and washed away our driveway.

But at some point, the allure wasn’t enough. I was exhausted from working full time at an office and at home. Winters were interminable. Our community of friends grew smaller. Around 2016, we finally admitted to each other that maybe it was time to consider moving. And after blowing up my life in late 2019, we did, even if wasn’t entirely intentional.

In 2025, we will be selling Goat Hill. We already have buyers that sound as if they will love it. My emotions around the closing of this chapter are conflicted. Did I fail that land? Even though I tried to be the best caretaker? Each of the logs that built our cabin were hand-milled on site from trees that grew on the hill. I used to run my fingers over the grooves, circling the knots and fissures. The walls are alive in a log cabin, felled trees crack and breathe as they age. I also breathed and cracked. Aged and changed. I’ll return this spring to take one more walk through those woods. Say goodbye to the trees that I confided in. The creek where my dog swam under the midnight sun. My fallow garden and feral perennials. Our dirt driveway that hosted gatherings of swallowtail butterflies. Ponds that served as nurseries for shorebirds. I’ll lie on the wide spruce floor planks and remember napping in front of woodstove with my pets, both of which are gone now. And then I will close the sky blue door behind me.

The cabin and Dave with new stairs.

Maddie and Mochi in front of the woodstove.

My last autumn in the cabin.

If you want to continue to read essays like this, please buy my books! Garden of Shadows was released on October 29 and sales are slow this year. It is also important for readers to leave reviews on book websites. You don’t have to purchase my book from Amazon to review it there. It doesn’t even have to be long, just a few words. Once you a book reaches 50 reviews, it gets suggested to readers.

And as a final special offer, I have a few copies of Garden of Shadows and Voyage of the Pleiades that I’m willing to personalize for the holidays. You can purchase them at the links in this paragraph, before December 15, and I will ship them priority mail. Thank you!

*Lyrics from “3 am” by Gregory Alan Isakov.