Thursday, June 10, 2010

Cross Creek - Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's Florida Homestead




Smack dab in the middle of nowhere sits the tiny community of Cross Creek, Florida, and smack dab in the middle of Cross Creek, sits author Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's Cracker homestead, purchased in 1928, when Marjorie moved to Florida in search of a place to write. Standing amidst her citrus groves, it's not hard to imagine what life was like when Marjorie lived there. It's as though her spirit still resides in the trees, the barn, her seasonal kitchen garden, the now quiet typewriter sitting on the front porch table, next to a pack of Lucky Strikes and an empty gin glass.

The day we visited, it was stormy and hot. In fact, it rained so hard at one point, we took refuge in the barn along with a few chickens. When the rain stopped, steam rose from the tin roof of the hen house, and left droplets on the tiny growing oranges in the grove.

As much as I love wandering the grounds, my favorite part of the Cross Creek experience is walking through Marjorie's house. Like any visitor, you wipe your feet on the doormat, and enter through the front porch, where Marjorie wrote and napped. The house still contains mostly original furnishings, aside from Marjorie's book collection, which included signed copies by Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost. Many authors were guests at Cross Creek, and if only the dining room walls could talk. Not hindered by political correctness, and fueled by fresh, local food and much booze, you can practically hear the high-spirited conversations that took place. Marjorie had gentler dinners with poet Robert Frost, though, and I like to envision them discussing yearlings, sojourners, fences and neighbors, and roads not taken.

Marjorie's kitchen alone is worth the visit. My mother's side of the family comes from a North Florida town about the size of Cross Creek, called Ponce de Leon. The family homestead is a typical Cracker house with a tin roof and wrap-around porch, and Marjorie's kitchen reminds me of the kitchen my Great Aunt Anna Lou ruled: wood burning stove, pie chest, fresh veggies from the garden, corn bread in a skillet, and the mixings for caramel cake. Park rangers at Marjorie's still use the kitchen to occasionally cook for themselves.

Marjorie called Cross Creek her "place of enchantment." She lived there for 25 years, wrote The Yearling and Cross Creek there, and, although it was by no means an easy life on a farming homestead, walking the grounds and in the house, you can feel what she meant. She had an independence out there on her land, and took pleasure in her natural surroundings. She created a successful business from her groves, and I'm sure would be pleased to know her land still produces citrus, and continues to live on as a state park.

"It is is necessary to leave the impersonal highway, to step inside the rusty gate, and close it behind. One is now inside the orange grove, out of one world and in the mysterious heart of another. And after long years of spiritual homelessness, of nostalgia, here is that mystic loveliness of childhood again. Here is home."
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Cross Creek, 1942

























































































































































































2 comments:

  1. I LOVED this post, Carolyn. You conveyed so much!! Never been to Cross Creek but now I want to go more than ever!

    Between your writing & your photography, you have a career if you want it. Beautifully done!

    -Kalib

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  2. Thank you, thank you, Kalib! :)
    I adore Cross Creek for many reasons, but mostly, I think, b/c it reminds me of my family. It's also in the middle of nowhere, and that's very appealing. :)
    You & me, we just gotta keep doing what we love!

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