Beyond their
brilliant sparkle and beauty, diamonds are the most impenetrable of all
precious stones. Born out of extreme temperatures and pressures, crystallized
diamonds form in the hardened rock that spews from the surface of the earth
through ruptured streams of volcanic magna, an experience that makes their
enduring existence all the more intriguing. I often find myself studying the
sixth month old diamond that anoints my own left hand, and I wonder about the
journey that it took to get to its resting place on my fourth finger. Perched
daintily in its four-prong setting on a slightly twisted white gold band, my
diamond is the perfect combination of tenacity and beauty – a representation of
a solid marriage.
After
we got engaged last summer, I was often asked if I knew Andrew was “the one”
from the moment I met him. Did our eyes lock from across the room? Was there
that instant spark of chemistry? Did his smile melt my heart? I must admit that
I didn’t feel any of those strong sensations the first moment I saw him. In
fact, we started out as friends during our first year of undergrad. Among the
important lessons I learned in those first few months of college was the
phenomenon that time moves exponentially faster in college than it does in high
school. Andrew and I surmised that it was a basic four to one ratio: for every
one month of real time, it felt like four months had gone by. Appropriately
named the “interim principle”, we likened this idea to a January term in
college where you spend one month studying as intensely as you would for the
four months of a normal semester. Andrew and I started dating after three
months of being friends, though according to our collegiate principle it felt
more like a year. He was my bedrock among a sea of new experiences, new people,
and a new life. There wasn’t one crystallizing moment when our possible future
together became a certainty. My confidence emerged gradually that we would
eventually become permanent parts of each other’s lives.
On
my dad’s side of the family, you know you’re serious about someone when you
bring them to the cabin in Montana. All of my older cousins, now married,
followed this tradition; even my aunt, who found love after losing her husband,
followed suit. The cabin consists of three brown buildings nestled safely
inside a canyon, embraced by a winding mountain road. As a child, this was my
summer haven. After surviving a fifteen-hour drive squished in the back seat
between my brothers, I always felt a sense of relief wash over me as I heard
the familiar rattle of our van crossing the cattle guards. Turning off the
highway, the mouth of the canyon would enclose us as we hugged the curving
pavement. On either side of us, the cliffs extended forever thousands of feet
above. Just as the anticipation was almost too much to bear, we would see a
clearing in the canyon: the cabin.
As
I grew older and my summers grew busier with sports and camps, our family trips
to the cabin became less consistent. Every year turned to every other year and
then every third year. With my older brother and I on the verge of college
graduation, my parents decided to take a final family trip to the cabin during
my junior year of college. We brought Andrew with us. This was the summer
before he placed the diamond on my left hand, but the seriousness of our
relationship was no question at this point. Due to the interim principle, we
knew just about everything about each other that there was to know about a
person. But the cabin was different. I felt intensely connected to this place
in a way that Andrew had never seen before, and I knew I had to share it with
him. Snuggled comfortably together in the back seat on the way, I tried to
explain to Andrew all the wonderful things about the cabin, but my words didn’t
do justice to the memories in my mind. I couldn’t keep myself from wondering
what things would be like since the last time I had been there. Would the pond
be as clear as the day we found my dog stuck halfway in with her arthritic legs
desperately hanging on? Did the cave that my uncle discovered as a child still
hold the treasures that we buried in its gravel floor? I even wondered if the
taxidermic boar head would still be mounted in its usual position above the
fireplace, though it frightened me every time I saw it.
The cabin wasn’t always used as a
getaway home. In fact, it didn’t always reside in the bosom of the canyon
either. My grandparents purchased the building off a farmer’s property in 1970
and paid to have it towed and placed on the hill that is now the top of their
driveway. My grandfather – a Lutheran pastor – enlisted the help of his
congregation to solidify the foundation making the structure a permanent part
of the property. Later on, we called this building the main cabin because it
was the first to make its mark. For my dad, the youngest of five children, the
cabin was his summer home. He and his siblings spent their summers hiking,
swimming, walking, and exploring the same areas that I would be introducing to
Andrew for the first time thirty years later. During the days, my dad and his
siblings could spend time isolated in the loving arms of nature doing whatever
they pleased. But at nights they would come together for family dinners and a
fire near the clear pond. My grandfather would give mini sermons and tell
stories to his children while my grandmother, the church pianist, would lead
her family in some campfire music that would echo long into the night,
reverberating off the sides of the mountain until it eventually immortalized in
the air.
I
noticed the first difference as soon as the van turned its wheels to ascend the
steep driveway. I expected the sound of softly crunching gravel to put me at
ease, but the smooth silence of the freshly laid concrete left me eerily
unsettled. Something wasn’t quite right, and I fidgeted in my seat the entire
way up, straining to see what other sights would reshuffle my schemas. But at
the top of the driveway, my heart was content once more: this was most
certainly the cabin that I had known all my life. My grandparents stood waving
from the top of the hill, delighted at the arrival of visitors. Once their
children grew up, the cabin changed from a temporary summer home into an actual
home for my grandparents despite its distance from the rest of the family. Over
the years, they added two new buildings to the property in addition to the
initial cabin, and in 1996 they started their own business of hosting retreat
groups from congregations across the country. Despite its remote location
within the Little Belt Mountains, Canyon Haven Retreat Center was a diamond in
the rough. Many groups flocked to Canyon Haven looking for anything from a
spiritual rejuvenation to a rest stop for the night and morning breakfast. They
could find whatever they were looking for within the walls of these three
buildings.
As
I pointed out each building to Andrew in turn, I remembered all of my memories
contained within their walls. The building at the highest point of the hill was
my grandparents’. I associated that building with the sweet smells of pancakes
and maple syrup that seemed to always be on the table when my brothers and I
would make the trek up the steep hill from our beds in the main cabin still rubbing
the sleep out of our eyes. We would sit on the porch and gobble our gooey
breakfast while my grandmother’s cats weaved in and out of our sun-tanned legs.
After breakfast we would run down to the third building beyond the main cabin
and explore. Downstairs was a tool shelf that ran the entire length of one wall
but was hidden behind a curtain that my grandmother hung. Beneath that sheet
existed a whole other world. Our little hands revived rusted metal objects that
lay dormant for years and incorporated them into our games despite their
danger. When the air became too thick behind the sheet to breathe, we would
burst out the door and sprint down the rock staircase that my grandmother
assembled, leap, and land with a splash in the icy cold pond water with our
clothes still on. Submerged for only a few seconds, we would emerge shivering
and giggling all at once.
As
I escorted Andrew into the main cabin, the architectural ancestor to the newer
buildings, the history of the place was overwhelmingly apparent – large black
and white portraits of relatives when they first came from Norway hung
stoically on the wall. Books with worn pages and flimsy spines lined the
bookshelves that covered one wall from floor to ceiling. There were some parts
of the wood paneling inside that hinted at aging, but the cabin showed no other
signs of weariness. The best part of the building was the loft where I always
slept during our summer vacations. Ascending the steep wooden staircase –
really more like a ladder – was as precarious a task for me at twenty years old
as it was for me as a young girl. Andrew and I ducked into a space that seemed oddly
unfamiliar. The loft that I remember resembled a 70s interior design magazine,
but the recent update left the old mahogany walls and olive drab carpet
replaced by neutral tones of tan and white. Fortunately the layout of the loft
was familiar: nuzzled together were a total of six beds and four extra
mattresses, all of which would most likely be occupied whenever my grandparents
hosted a retreat group. Though the physical appearance had been slightly
modified, standing there with Andrew transported me back to my childhood
summers at the cabin when I would get the whole loft to myself. I used to make
a game of seeing how many times I could circle the space by only stepping on
mattresses or rugs in order to avoid the boiling lava ground beneath me.
Sometimes I would have to leap from one mattress to the other, holding my
breath as I floated through the air for what seemed like an eternity, until I
safely bounced onto the next boxspring landing pad. If I missed my mark and
stepped on the thinly carpeted floor, I would quickly retract my foot and blow
the lava off. It was my game, and as long as I made up the rules, I could never
lose.
It
is strange how much we crave constancy. Psychology has a basic explanation: our
brains are naturally wired to recognize new situations and analyze them for the
potential dangers. If unfamiliar stimuli are present, our primal instincts
engage and we are on high alert until the situation becomes familiar. I know
myself well enough to realize that I need the reliability of a routine and the
safety of a schedule in my life to protect from the new situations that could
possibly harm me. I understand that not everyone is like this, but Andrew says
this quality is part of my nature; it’s what makes me dependable. He calls me
his rock, which is flattering since that is a substance that humans believe
basically lasts forever. Like the mountains that surround the cabin, I represent
the strength and stability of those weathered giants.
But is it possible
to feel completely fulfilled living life as a rock?
Often I feel the
same psychological wiring that keeps me in my scheduled routine also prevents
me from exploring new possibilities. Unlike me, Andrew seeks adventure. I never
understood the adrenaline rush of doing something exhilarating or out of the
ordinary, but sometimes I wish I did. Is there something I’m missing out on? I
live in a world of the known, where I make the rules of the games and know the
right roads to travel. I know which direction to face to view the sunrise and
sunset every day and night. Yet no matter how beautiful they may seem to me, I
am painfully aware that I am only ever perceiving one side of this recurring
phenomenon, and I fear that one day that one side won’t be enough.
On our last day at
the cabin, Andrew and I decided to go on a hike to the peak of the highest
cliff that overlooks the cabin. It was the same hike that my dad took me on
every summer when we visited. He taught me to use nature as a guide. From him I
learned how to follow the zigzag of deer tracks for the safest path to the top
and how to trust the hillside to catch my fall in case I lost my footing. After
all the years that I looked up at my dad and followed in the prints of his
hiking boots, I realized that the map of the trail was engrained in my mind. I
could close my eyes and see all the gradients of the land, the rolling curves
of the hills and the jagged points of each rock. Just as I had done all week, I
led Andrew further into my land of the known.
No matter how many times
I reach the summit of that mountain, the picturesque beauty always moves me.
The seemingly infinite number of trees forms a hefty army on the rolling Montana
landscape, and the clouds are so close I can almost pull one down and wrap its
fluff around me like a blanket. Below are the winding mountain road and the
creek running alongside for company that I know intimately. They both lead to
the paved driveway and the three brown buildings that make up the property, now
dollhouse-sized from thousands of feet above. Andrew and I stood in silence and
drank in the view exploring every imaginable angle. He naturally locked his
fingers with mine as we stared out into the vast expanse, solid foundation
beneath us and between us, and a world of possibilities ahead. When the
magnificent colors of the sunset began to emerge, we decided we should probably
return to the cabin as I had done hundreds of times before. Only this time,
with the faith that our canyon haven waited patiently for us at the bottom,
Andrew and I descended hand in hand, carving a new path down the mountain.
