Notes from Maine - 2021/03/29
I’m actually a little nervous. Tonight (March 29, 2021), Finn and I are going to be on an episode of Maine Cabin Masters on the DIY channel. It’s a TV show where a crew come in and renovate a camp while filming the whole process.
In Maine, if a family has a small cabin out in the woods or by a lake, we call it a “Camp”. I guess that moniker didn’t flow well enough, or maybe doesn’t translate to the rest of the world, so the show is called Maine Cabin Masters. My father bought this camp in the 90s, just a mile away from my grandparents’ house. It was small—just a single room and an attached porch. It was a good place to change into your bathing suit before you went swimming, or spend the night occasionally in the dog days of summer. I liked to go there to write sometimes, especially if there was a thunderstorm coming. Now that it has been remodeled, with a bathroom and kitchen, the camp will be a destination where a person could stay a few days.
My brother owns my grandparents’ old camp, which is just around the bend on the same lake. Built by my grandfather and my uncle, that camp is primitive. It has no electricity or running water. It’s just a roof and a wood stove with a couple of bunk beds. When I was a kid, I loved to sleep over at that camp. With the windows open, you could hear enormous beasts walking around at night and splashing in the lake. The thin walls and screened windows made no promises to protect you from whatever was out there. The mornings were magical—waking up at sunrise to see the mist clinging to the lake.
My brother was the one who orchestrated the whole enterprise with Maine Cabin Masters. My father was incapacitated at the time, so he couldn’t be a part of the process. I had to film myself talking about what the camp means to our family and why we wanted to preserve and expand it. I also talked about my books and writing at the camp. That may be what swayed them to include our camp on their show because they seem to be highlighting the horror aspects in the show.
Finn and I only had to go the site twice for filming—once for the before and once for the after. I was able to bring Dad for the reveal, which was nice. All summer, we worked towards the goal of him walking into his camp again. He had the strength (he worked very hard) but unfortunately he broke his foot a week or so before the filming. I had to wheel him inside. His foot is all healed up now, and he’s walking very well.
Everything about filming the episode was very smooth and natural. The production crew was great. They took the appropriate steps with COVID precautions, and they made the whole process seem very casual. I wasn’t nervous at all then. The reason I’m nervous now is that I have no idea what’s going to appear on TV. It has been completely out of my hands.
I make plenty of missteps and mistakes when I put out a book (or one of these letters), but it’s always completely in my control. Nothing leaves my desk until I decide it’s ready. Handing over that control to someone else is challenging.
