A few weeks back, a clan of sorts convened at our cabin in Montana for the First Annual Colter Wall Singing Bee and general merriment. If you don’t know who Colter Wall is, take a stroll through YouTube, you might fancy his music. If you don’t know what general merriment entails, your clan has failed you, find a new clan.

Or, perhaps, and more likely, you have failed your clan? Perhaps, your presence scatters general merriment hither and yon, smothering it into a docile, dead-eyed, head nodding existence. How does one know if the clan or the individual is at fault for the absence of general merriment? As Robert Pirsig put it in his book, Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, “The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”

This particular clan of seven people, and two dogs, holed up in an 18x20 one-room log cabin with no electricity, no cellular service, and no indoor plumbing for a few days on a cold and snowy October weekend. The clan was comprised of myself, our daughter Sierra, her “man friend” Troy, their friend Brittany, my brother Gabe, his friend and co-worker Terry Knutson, and Gabe’s brother-in-law Bradley Rosenquist. If any of these people shirked any duties, or called in sick during this time, I apologize for unraveling their stories.

Knowing how busy life can be, I sent the call out for this gathering a month or so in advance, to allow time for schedules to be bent and twisted a bit, if one was so inclined to do so. There were a few who weren’t able to make it work this time around, but the “First Annual” implies that a second annual may be forthcoming. For those that were willing, and/or able, to give up one of their yearly issued 52 weekends, I am quite grateful.

As the elder of the clan, there were times when I had to remove myself from the group gathered around the kitchen table to reload by the fire. In a one-room cabin you’re never too far removed from anything or anybody, but it was enjoyable to just sit and listen to the “youngsters” laugh and visit about everything and nothing. Good people. All with a firm grasp of the concept of general merriment.

Everyone departed on Sunday, but I had a few more days off, so I farted around the cabin until Tuesday. After a few days of late nights, singing, laughing, and what have you, I suddenly found myself alone by the fire, surrounded by silence. Within that silence I found myself wishing that the door of the cabin would suddenly swing open and everyone would jostle in, take their places around the table, and make the rafters roar once again. So it goes.

Times like this come and go so quickly, but the memories can be relied upon for as long as our memory allows. I look at the empty chairs surrounding the table and see them all, I sit in the flickering light of the fireplace and hear the laughter and music the cabin walls strained to contain. I lie in bed and smile as I recall the chorus of snores coming from all corners of the cabin. Snores of people that gave general merriment all they had, snores of a content clan.