Sometimes it's pretty easy to distinguish between "inside" and "outside." Or, depending on what you call it, "indoors" and "outdoors." If you've ever been camping, you may know where I'm going with this.My husband lives in a pretty traditional house, where the above picture was taken (of the rain, sorta, through a screen door). (Yes, I will soon live there too. What can I say, it's a process.) When you walk into his house, you cross a threshold into "indoors." There, you are protected from the rain. It's a small three-dimensional part of the planet that is climate-controlled, for the most part. Even with all the hoop-de-doo in the past ten years about "indoor/outdoor living," the spaces are pretty much separate.
However, the situation is different at our family camps. One is more house-like. It was built only about 50 years ago. It's uninsulated, one-and-a-half stories, with cubbyhole bedrooms in a semi-finished upstairs, one bathroom (added in the 1980s), and a pump organ. Because my grandparents wanted it there, that's why.
The other camp, the "little" one, 80+ years old, is far less house-like. Only boards separate its occupants from elements--no insulation, no interior walls. The roofing boards are covered by tarpaper roofing material which desperately needs to be replaced.
When it rains, as it has for the past couple of days, it's even more difficult to tell whether you're indoors or outdoors, even if you're standing on wood flooring under spruce beams. You're likely to be standing under a persistent drip as well. The foundation beams, which were sturdy enough 80 years ago, sag in spots. We're working on shoring up the back room, now, and after the foundation is solid there, we'll put a new roof on. That will help separate the indoors from the outdoors.
Still, even with these improvements, only the faintest of lines will prevent those staying at this little camp from being outside. That's part of the allure, of course. Waking up in the morning to the music of waves and loons and gulls--well, there's nothing like it. And that's why my family wanted this camp in the first place.
