Solitude

We talk of communing with Nature, but ’tis with ourselves we commune… Nature furnishes the conditions – the solitude – and the soul furnishes the entertainment.

John Burrough

A lonely, broken down house sat at the edge of the woods, its windows boarded, its roof partially exposed to the elements, its occupants roosting in the rafters or hiding in secret holes bored into the walls. The house could feel the ghosts of past occupants still wandering its hallways.

It wasn’t always so. Seventy years ago a stranger came to the woods, felled trees and lovingly constructed the house with hard work and fine craftsmanship. He had married, raised a family, made the house a loving comfortable home and took care of its every need for decades. But time moves on, as did the children, and when the parents died the house…