After a fabulous Fourth, this song by Louis Armstrong popped into my head, and as I looked up the lyrics, I instantly recognized the verse that so clearly reflected my recent experience: “I see skies of blue, clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to my myself, what a wonderful world . . .”
And I began to wonder about, well, wonder.
There’s no place on earth to which I have traveled regularly which offers more opportunity for wonder than Cheat Mountain Club in West Virginia. Originally a hunting and fishing lodge built in the latter part of the 19th century out of enormous hand-hewn spruce logs, it sits amidst 183 pristine acres and along the highest river east of the Mississippi, the Shaver’s Fork. Not only that, it is surrounded by 900,000 contiguous acres of the Monongahela National Forest at an elevation of 3400 feet.
When my father mailed me travel writer, Bill Heavey’s article from The Washington Post in December 1998 entitled, “Cheat Thrills” with a hand-written note along the lines of, “Caro, you’re going to love this place,” I knew I had to go. Knew beyond a shadow of a doubt in fact.
Heavey’s piece was not only enticing but laugh-out-loud funny. Some of my favorite of his comments were that CMC, in its former life, was “basically a monastery for people who liked to shoot things.” And regarding its current life: “This is for real rustic, not Martha Stewart rustic. There is no Jacuzzi, no 24 hour massage service, no truffle on your pillow…If you want the first sheet of toilet paper folded into a point, you’ll have to do it yourself.”
Not much has changed since 1998 except how it is run and managed. Oh, and the fact that there is now massage offered – per request and if time permits – as those who offer this service are also the chefs and care-takers in every conceivable respect.
When I first walked into the Great Room with my immediate family who I had dragged along, albeit willingly, it was love at first sight. I had a vision of my entire family filling it with laughter and song and endless (board) game playing as there were no distractions of the “modern” world such as TV, internet or cell service for that matter. That was and still is the magic of this place – a place where family and friends can not only gather but relationships can be forged and genuine connection can happen.
The memories are far too numerous to recount, but one of my fondest was when my mother, who came only once when it was operated as a B & B, greeted my barefoot self with, “Oh…they don’t require shoes here?” As I have told others, Mom was more of a “Homestead kinda gal,” but she graciously went with the flow, ate with other guests she had never met, played scrabble with my oldest daughter and even walked outside! She was as comedian Jim Gaffigan would call “indoorsy.”
Not long after she died in 2002, I discovered that Cheat Mountain had changed from a B & B to a “beach house” model where you could rent out the entire space. And from 2003 until the present my extended family has been enjoying “crucial, precious and unrepeatable moments” there, most especially my father until 2011 that is, when he departed this world.
Cheat Mountain has also been described to me by one if its owners as a “high, holy place.” A crescent moon imperceptibly moving across a star studded sky; Merganser ducks alighting on the surface of the river; rainbow trout collecting in the cool, deep water; the sun light streaming through a Tolkien-like forest; a crawfish squirming in the hands of a delighted 12 year old girl; a river-side fire blazing in JULY, beckoning the ones you love and are growing to love. It’s all wonderful, breathtaking, soul nourishing and yes, holy.
Scripture teaches us to become like little children, and I hope we would each have a child-like “sense of wonder so indestructible” that it would last a lifetime and more importantly, give us life.
Author Anne Lamott writes, “Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, ‘Well, that’s pretty much what I thought I’d see,” you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here . . . Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.”
Perhaps we should always be asking ourselves: “Are we?”
– Caroline Watkins
