Curves

For the past few mornings, I’ve been walking up the small hill to my friend’s house. She lives here on the property with her nineteen-month-old daughter. Lately, she has needed an extra pair of eyes, ears, and arms while she showers and gets ready for the day.

I’ve made this walk many times before, but now it feels different.

Walking back down the hill, I noticed the grass is especially beautiful this year, tracing gentle curves through the driveway, around the parking area, and up the hill toward my friend’s house and, since last month, my son’s tiny house.

I hadn’t realized until these morning walks that the people and the curves have something in common.

Neither was here when my late husband and I bought this place.

My massage practice is here at home, and for years, clients would drive up the long, wide, straight dirt driveway, reach the even wider open area to park, and begin weaving from one side to the other, unsure where to go if I neglected to instruct them beforehand.

It bothered me every time I witnessed the confusion.

I’d tell Malcolm, “We need to make the driveway more defined…for my clients.”

(and for my aesthetic sanity).

He looked at it differently.

To him, the driveway was about practicality. A straight driveway and huge parking area were easier to plow snow.

To me, it was all about the arrival.

I wanted people to feel they had entered somewhere peaceful before they ever stepped through my front door.

I wanted that for myself, too.

The spring after Malcolm died, I started lining the driveway with rocks, each one just large enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Two parallel lines that slowly gave shape to the driveway, then opened into a smaller parking area that quietly suggested where people belonged.

I often imagined the neighbors driving or walking by and thinking, “Katherine has way too much time on her hands.”

Maybe wondering if I was okay, being a grieving wife and all, oddly placing a ton of little rocks along her driveway.

Year after year, I planted grass along the edges. The wide, straight driveway gradually softened into a more narrow curve.

Then my friend built her little house on the hill.

Then her daughter arrived.

Then my son arrived with his tiny house.

As the humans I love multiplied, so did the curved driveways.

The grass isn’t perfect. It’s part grass, part clover, part moss, daisies, dandelions, and probably a dozen other things I couldn’t name. I honestly don’t care what it is, as long as it’s something green and replacing rock and dirt.

It’s why my town feels like home.

Route 1 follows the bends of the East Machias River as it winds toward the ocean. I’ve driven those curves thousands of times. There isn’t much that’s straight around here. The roads roll over hills and follow the shape of the land instead of forcing the land to follow them.

Straight lines get us where we’re going. Sometimes that’s exactly what we need. 

Curves invite us to slow down.

They feel softer.

Welcoming.

Hinting that something is just around the bend...

As my son and partner build a mudroom for the tiny house, they naturally think about measurements, construction, and getting the job done. I notice a similar difference I’ve known throughout much of my life.

I think about how it feels.

Whether the room can breathe.

Whether the light has room to move.

Whether the eye has a place to rest. 

Whether the windows frame the trees. 

Neither way is wrong.

(But let’s be honest, mine’s a little more right.)

When Malcolm and I were looking for a house, acreage was high on his list of must-haves. He wanted privacy. Enough land for hunting. 

The most land I’d ever lived on was probably an acre or two, and that seemed like plenty. Beyond that felt unnecessary.

But that didn’t matter because the acreage was Malcolm’s dream.

I loved that I could take a mile-long walk without ever leaving our own property. 

And the privacy.

But after he died, all that land became overwhelming, 

Privacy became isolation. 

For years I wondered what I was supposed to do with eight acres. 

Simply enjoying it didn’t seem like enough.

Slowly, the answer was about sharing it.

The Hipcamp has been part of that dream too. Right now it’s simple, but I can picture picnic tables at each site and, someday, maybe even a few cabins tucked among the trees. It could become a wonderful little business.

And fun, too.

These past few walks have helped me to see something I couldn’t before. 

When Malcolm died, grief filled this property.

Grief gave way to ownership.

Ownership gave way to stewardship. 

This land was Malcolm’s dream. 

One day, it will be someone else’s.

But for now…

it’s mine.

My turn to tend it. 

To shape it.

To fill it with life.