Basement Lair

My basement lair is an impressive hundred odd feet above sea level at high tide. I know this rough estimate of a fact because I hike ninety-one stone steps from the board walk to the front door ever evening after work. Of course, my brother would have me point out that he sprints up and down those steps multiple times every day. The boardwalk usually sits about seven feet above the water at high tide so I figure a hundred feet give or take depending on the tide.
Within my lair, there is a bunk room that brother and I share. It is probably the cleanest room down here and there are no vampires in there because of the ever expanding spider population. There is a laundry room which is also the battery/tool shed of the house. There is a hall room with a sink, shelves, a non-functional microwave oven, and a gorgeous view of the entire cove. The other room with the sofas and electric piano is great to be in for a limited amount of time seeing as it is right next to the septic tank. At least there are windows.
At some point I will post pictures of this place, (probably when I get back to California and my usb cable). Every time I sit down to write about the beauty here, I just lose the words. I mean, I walk twenty steps up hill and I am submerged in north American rain forest, I walk twenty steps down hill and am faced with clean, clear ocean waters. It is summer and the weather is wonderful. We get water from a stream. Dinner could be caught in our front yard. I get the unsellables from my work, like old produce and expired rice milk. I walk through fairy land to reach the kind of lake you see in post cards in order to watch my younger brother leap off fifty foot cliffs. There are wolves and bald eagles in our back yard. Any anthropologist would salivate at the opportunity to meet some of the characters here. But as time goes on, I find it is easy to take it all for granted.
There will come a day that I will look back on this summer with a little grain of pain in my heart. The kind of pain that comes to fill in a hole that is made when you leave a bit of your self behind somewhere or with someone. I will not avoid that feeling, but I will not feel it yet.
Now I resign myself to my lair and will not think of that day.