Читать книгу Dialogues with Jen - Donald R. Fletcher - Страница 7

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Ian.

“Don, my uncle has a cabin in the Poconos. I was telling him about our conversation at Jen’s place, and he said, ‘If your group wants to get together again, where you can think and talk and not be disturbed, why don’t you use my cabin? It’s quiet enough up there, and the woods are beautiful, even at this time of year.’ I thanked him and said I would consult you.”

We worked it out for a Sunday a couple of weeks later, in mid-November. Ian’s uncle also offered his van, and we five rode together, in a festive mood. The Poconos, on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, opposite north central New Jersey, are not large mountains, but the land rises enough for a distinct change in the air. It grew clear and crisp. The November sky, beyond bare, white-birch branches, was steel blue. Before we reached the cabin, we came into a region where there had been a light, early snow.

I wondered how comfortable the cabin might be; but didn’t need to. Ian had seen to that. When we went in, after stamping some snow off our shoes, there was a fire laid in the fireplace. Ian soon had it crackling cheerfully, throwing warm flickers on our faces. And within minutes, while Jen and I were still admiring the snug cabin and its graceful setting on the brow of a hill, Beth and Ian had coffee and hot apple cider on the white-pine table.

When we were comfortably arranged in a semi-circle facing the fireplace, some with our cups still in hand, and Luc had adjusted the electric heat as well, Jen began.

“What an idyllic location this is! Plato’s Socrates could have gladly exchanged his grove of olive trees outside of Athens for the white birches on this hilltop. So, remembering him, we’ll let the talk and the ideas flow. At my house several weeks ago we were considering Eros and romantic love, and how two lovers get together. Is it instinct, or choice, or what?”