The Cabin is Gone

Before Dad went into assisted living the family members who could take the time off from work took Dad to the Oregon Coast where we spent our summers growing up in a tiny rental cabin.

The first night there, there was a huge Pacific storm and the next day dawned blustery, to say the least.

My husband and I had rented three suites, one with a huge kitchen and living room, that adjoined or were across the hall from the others so a few of us could gather. The biggest one was a corner unit with great views. Everyone involved had done so much for Dad this summer while we worked, this was our treat, lodging, food, everything.

With it being mid-week and during school, it was a small group but it was a tight group.  My cousin L (who shares with me the care of Dad now) and her Partner K., and Big Bro's beloved only daughter and her daughter (her husband, a former submariner was working and wasn't able to make it) and Partner and I.

 The storm had passed.

People and their animals ventured out.

I remember once as a kid the tide went out so far we could drive a car around the backside of Haystack.  Cars aren't allowed now, but 45 years ago, this beach was almost deserted but for the locals and the occasion moron that drove his car into the incoming tide and got stuck and watched it get covered with saltwater. Still everyone morning, before it was even light, Bro and I would head out to the rock to check out the tide pools, not disturbing anything, just taking in the wonders of the natural world.

We'd get up before light, being careful not to wake Mom, and head on down to the tide pools that were exposed, gingerly looking, while not harming anything that was there, hoping to find a prehistoric shell to take home.  On the old 60's TV cabinet at Dad's, as we moved him from his home we found a dish full of sand dollars. Many of you have seen a sand dollar. They're commonly sold in souvenir stores. But what you see is only the remaining skeleton of a living sea creature. When living, the sand dollar is covered with fine hair-like cilia that cover tiny spines, soft, and almost purple in color. But the remaining shell is beautiful, fragile, white. The essential essence of what this creature was.

We'd throw some of them back in the water, the tide moving as fast and as slow as life itself, even as we ourselves could not sense that momentum, believing that it would always be like this. All that distance between ourselves and the future, it was not even a thought in that long peaceful creep of a childhood afternoon.

I think back to that childhood beachside Cabin, But the cabin is gone.  It's wood cremated to ash, its foundation covered by the advance of time,  But from that time of my youth, it burned brightly in my mind, that one constant, that spot on earth on which we grew and spread our wings, even as we were rooted to its ground, drawing our faith together there with our life.

I spent a good part of my childhood summers and the occasional holiday weekend at that cabin, right on the water's edge, only a small margin of sand between the sea and tranquility. It was small and clean and within its walls were my happiest memories. Getting up before dawn with my older brother to walk miles to look at the wonders the night had exposed. Clouds caught on the mountains, the sky grey in the morning, a filtered, ocean blue-grey, hesitant cloud cover that we felt safe under.

Days running through the trees, down onto the sand, playing soldier or stormtrooper or spy. Days filled with time, as though it were something solid you could pick off the ground and put in your pocket.  But what I put in that pocket was a small stone, no moose etched on it, but a stone, a small smooth weight I carried in my pocket, worn smooth by the action of the waves that flirted with the shore. Waves are part of life, the cadence of your day, perhaps that is why I'm drawn to the shore. The beach where we vacationed, like any stretch of sand and stone, is formed of glacial drift and rock, the small stones that you can still hold in the palm of your hand are worn to their element. I would touch them, smooth against my skin, stroking the surfaces well rounded by the waters never-ending manipulative caress. But in addition to the stones, we'd find all sorts of treasures, branches and bits of bone, small pieces of the wild, tossed about by wind and galloping currents, and abandoned as casual playthings of the wild, just waiting to be picked up and held.

TV was not allowed at the cabin and we'd play outside unless it was raining hard enough to drown a duck, coming in only for lunch (and once to catch Dad watching football - busted!). We played, racing around rocks, trees, and water until supper, when we'd come into Mom, to freshly baked cheddar garlic bread and fresh-caught fish. We'd bound in and she'd take us in, in arms that smelled of flour, her auburn hair scented with Wind Song perfume, her laughter a balm to any skinned knee that might have occurred during the day's warfare. We ran until we couldn't take in a breath.  We drove our feet deep into the sand as if imprinting it forever.  We conquered the waves on skimboards, shooting across the wet sand with nothing more than the physics of motion and an inch of water, getting a sensation of movement of air and water, that never left either of us.

Nights were filled with the sound of the water lulling us to sleep after our nightly family time that consisted of board games, fires, Jiffy Pop popcorn, and always, prayer before our simple supper.

The cabin is gone.

I loved those mornings with my brother at the tide pool when no one was around and I had miles of the wild to myself. I loved it in the afternoon when the sun beat off my back while we played with a big weather balloon Dad got us and the chance of an encounter with something large of tooth and fin was simply an annoyance. I loved it when the fog lifted off the land and I could take the little Piper from the local airport where I worked as a teen, and follow eagles as they danced in tandem with the waves. With the light of the sky reflecting off my prop guiding me back to the airstrip, a wing-tipped to a pod of whales.

I still believed that life was uncomplicated. I loved it in the evening when I could get in one last walk at my world's edge when the whole landscape took on an otherworldly look and I could dream the dreams of my future in the sky against the backdrop of clear, iridescent waters.

Even into adulthood, that cabin was our hearthstone, even if distant, that place where we all had the right to sit as a family. We were already traveling hundreds of miles of uncharted ocean and sky, earning under or beyond the ocean, our glory, or sometimes no more than a stale sandwich and strong coffee. But going back there was like rendering an account, the open sky and that mighty ocean our friend, our inspiration, our judge. We came back, sometimes scarred, but we came back whole, as family, to face the peace and the truth which was simply grasping each other's hand in prayer before someone decided to play "Mr. Pincher" with a crab claw on a sibling that outranked them.

The cabin is gone

It was sold and replaced with a condominium on the site where the little cottage and those of its kind stood. We went back one last time before the buildings were razed and watched the sun set on my innocence. I wanted to hold onto that night, the way the water smelled, the wash of colors of a Western skyline, the lonely cry of a bird of prey echoing off of the wind. I looked so hard, so long, that I forgot to blink, and my eyes teared up. I didn't want to shut them; I wanted to capture what I was seeing forever, a color imprint on the film of memory. I simply did not want to let go.

I think of how many years Mom has been gone, now Big Bro. I think of dreams shattered, of dreams born. Before I left home to come back to work this week, I dreamed of Big Bro at the cabin, and in my dream he was silent, simply hugging me while I could hear his heartbeat as if it was the only thing in the room. I wonder if his silence is more from my holding on to him than letting him go. But letting go is easier said than done.

The cabin is gone.

I know that parts of my life are over and the cadence of my days and my future will change once again. But dealing with change as I grew up was easier at the cabin because over the years it was as constant as the gentle waves upon the shore. And so very last night, as I sat in a quiet room, only my laptop to keep me company, I opened up my picture folder stored therein, where I carry those glimpses of places and people that I love. As the world outside stilled, I took myself back to it, as if I was there. I took myself back so I could let go.

As Partner I ventured on that second day in this last family trip, I looked out upon the water, and remembered those days, happy I was out in the rain, getting wet, in doing so. As we walked, we talked, of mice and men and many things, sharing stories that occurred before he was born, that made me what I am, as our past shapes us all, like wind and tide.

I didn't mean we were ALL serious. There were these seagulls, and off to the left, one solitary seagull  Partner asked why he wasn't joining and I said: "he is just waiting for his tern".  Laughing is good, even at really bad puns.

Time for some games as another shower comes through.

Cribbage and then Dominoes!

We're not type A or anything.

 Then a Trip to Bruce's Candy Kitchen established 1962 or 3.  I always remember it being there

Childhood favorites!  I don't care if your five or fifty - it's always fun to get hyped up on sugar and then go annoy your parents.

I just had the cheap point and shoot camera but you get the idea.

I got some "seafoam" candy and a HUGE bag of their incredible salt water taffy for my great-niece.

 Shasta is tired and it was time for supper.

So many meals in this small coastal town, in good times and in bad,  as children, even during a time my Mom was battling cancer. She may have been too weak some days to get out of bed, but we were there, with Dad cooking pancakes that were so bad that the dog took them out and buried them and the one I threw in the fireplace wouldn't burn. Years later we still laugh about those pancakes.

We were there when storms tossed tree limbs like toys, taking out a window and reminding us just how vast and powerful the sky and ocean were, understanding both their saving power and severity. We were there through joy and hope and loss, and many, many a dismantled crab.

But for our first night- Chicken Tetrazzini.

But first, some homemade bread, cheese and olive spread.

We paused to say grace, for family and all our blessings.  Then we dug in.

 Some homemade Cardamon bread for Breakfast with fruit and yogurt.

Then it was time to explore some more.  Dad can't walk on the beach, but he had fun on the balcony with the binoculars, waving at us.

The storm washed up all kinds of stuff.

But some things it didn't budge.

Halibut fish and chips for lunch!  Partner and I both can't do shellfish but I've got him hooked on Halibut.

After lots of walking after lunch out on the beach, Dad beat everyone at Cribbage. 

Then Dad took a little walk around the property with a view of the beach, then came in with Shasta to wait for the baseball game to start. We let him break the rule about TV, it was THE baseball game to watch apparently.

Before we knew it, it was time for "fresh off the boat" crab which K went and so generously bought. With it, there was mac and cheese and salad and garlic toast.

Dad - he just ignored the kids being silly AND the sides and worked on his crab til he had this heaping pile of crabmeat on his plate and then ate it all at once with a bit of cocktail sauce.

The rest of the family had headed back to Central Oregon to work the next day, so it was just my husband, favorite cousin and her Partner and Dad.  We poured some wine and enjoyed every minute.

After a good night's sleep, it was soon time to go.  K. taking Shasta out for one last romp on the beach before an 11-hour drive for them, back to the mountains.

 Then back, as we gathered up our things.

Shasta senses something is changing as bags are gathered up, sticking close to her favorite human.

Partner and I made one last trip, by ourselves, to the spot where my parents rented a cabin when Bro and I were children, right on the water, the place now a huge hotel.  The dynamics of the ocean have changed, a river inlet to the ocean now shifted so much closer to the shoreline, where it had once been a huge expanse of beach.

This view is one I knew for my entire childhood - but for the water being a little further away when we were little.

What is it about certain things in life, the simplest of things, a tool, a smell, the feel of a piece of wood or small stone in your hand that evokes a place, a voice, a wistful goodbye, that makes you feel like a small child walking on a path of life that got suddenly big. And like a child, you deeply sense how it makes you feel, but the words you know to explain it are so very limited, so you just sit and look, and breathe it in.

The only sound I hear is the internal tick of a clock, the only other thing I can sense is a taste of salt, that of the ocean, or tears, I can not tell, but distilled there on my tongue taking me back some 40 or so years to that wooded area where we played soldier and spy, almost unchanged.  As I stood there, I could hear my brother calling to me from deep within the green - We've beaten the bad guys, come join me.   Not too soon Big Bro, I hope, but I will see you again

Then it was time to load up Dad and say goodbye.

Dad with my beloved cousin L, - who he took under his wing after her Dad died in a fishing boat accident when she was a young woman.  He will see her again, with her loving partner and family member K., but Dad knew it would be his last time here, with the family.

As he got into the car, I saw the tears as all he could get out was "last trip. . "  Then I said "but you DID beat everyone over the age of 5 in Cribbage"-- and he slyly chuckled "I did" and laughed, enjoying the car ride back to his house with a stop for marionberry pie before we got on the ferry.  Good memories to the end.

A couple of days later, Partner and I load up the rental car to take one last ferry ride to catch our flight home.  Dad watches me through the window from that old recliner that has faded, there where the light fell strongest. I wonder, does he see a grown woman, a few laugh lines there beneath the long red ponytail and ball cap? Or does he still see a little auburn-haired girl growing into adulthood at the speed of sound?  Does he recall all of those moments that haunt the winter of our memory, or just those golden days of summer at the beach, unmarred by rain or thunder? Or has he simply surrendered it all over to simply this moment, now, these remaining days that are left?

He yawns and his eyes close, there in the late Autumn sun, one last exhalation that empties his body of waking or worrying. The neighborhood lay in that soft hazy light that makes the houses look like old photos, faded scraps of color that scatter lightly on the earth, lighter than dust, with which one hard rain would wash forever from our sight and memory, were we not to gather them up to protect them.

I remind myself that love is more about how I feel in my heart than how others feel about me, that home has more to do with those who love me, than their being with me this very moment. And when I think of Big Bro standing against the landscape in my dream, still strong and healthy, I realize something. The undercurrents of ocean and sky had shaped him, eroding away all but what is essential; until all that was left was pure love, a pristine light that is his soul.  That, I will always have with me.

I tell myself, not how much I miss him, and will soon miss my whole family, but that I am thankful for who they were to me, and always will be.

The cabin is gone, but it's the memories that matter. They are in me, the way waves, incessant, after a long time, cease to be sound, yet are still there

 - LBJ

Pup-overs

My husband and I stayed up much later than normal as he's been traveling a lot the last six months and we had a lot to catch up on, just enjoying some wine and conversation into the wee hours, knowing we could sleep in.

Tell that to the furry alarm clocks. First, we heard the click of toenails in the hall, then the thumpa thumpa of Lorelei's tail in the crate, then came the BARK! So my husband got up.

"Did they have to go badly?", I asked.

"No," he said.  "they just wanted to look for peanut shells the squirrels dropped".

"Might as well get up and make something nice for breakfast", I said.

What are you going to make Mom?

Popovers.  These are so worth buying a pan from Williams and Sanoma.  They can be made in a muffin pan but won't be as high and fluffy.  I've made them often enough I don't need a recipe but the recipe IS from my favorite vegetarian cookbook "The New Moosewood Cookbook".

Preheat oven to 375F.

In one bowl mix:

1 and 1/4 cup milk or almond milk (at room temperature or nuke in a microwave-safe bowl for 45 seconds)
3  medium to large room temperature eggs (let sit out a bit or run under a bit of warm water)

In another bowl mix:
1 and 1/4 cups flour (regular or King Arthurs gluten-free adding 1/4 tsp xanthan gum if you do)
1/2 tsp salt.

Divide 2 to 3 Tablespoons of butter (or equal amount Earth Balance sticks) into six pieces.  Place 1 in each popover cup.  Place in oven to melt while you finish mixing (about two minutes).

Mix wet and dry ingredients, whisking with a fork.  Do not over mix. The batter will be lumpy but you shouldn't see globs of raw flour in it.

Remove pan from oven and spray the top of the popover cups with non-stick spray.

Place batter in hot popover cups and bake 30 minutes. Make sure there is plenty of room ABOVE them for them to rise (don't ask me how I know).

 Do NOT peek, unless it smells like they are burning

Serve immediately (they will start to deflate pretty promptly).  They're crisp on the outside, soft and pillowy on the inside.  Serve with butter, jam, or honey

You never give us PUP-overs.  We're calling the SPCA!

First the scarf, NOW no Pup-overs!

Put the phone down girls, you can have a piece of the bacon.

Keepsakes

Keep it, or throw it out?

In cleaning out the closest and drawers as summer clothing is cleaned and tucked away in storage, it's sometimes not an easy decision. Some items can be mended, but only if there is enough wear left to make it worth the time and effort.  Some items, that look like someone lost a jousting match with a paint can, are easier to toss away.

Most of us regularly go through our things, to clear space, to create room for new things, sometimes to the point it's almost an obsession.  I've met people that can not function if they don't shop almost daily, often for things they don't need, and can't afford, just because they have a psychological need to buy something. I once was sent to a home that had belonged to a hoarder. There was barely any light but for the lamps, items piled up over window height; a gloom that brooded over the clutter, as if angered by the light that came only with the flip of a switch. A single person lived there, with no room for family, for visitors, only for more possessions, most of which were in bags never opened.

I found that unbearably sad; even more so than the reason I was there.

Yet, in some ways, all of us are prone to gather up "things" that take up space.  I certainly have more lathe bits around than are likely allowed by law, and there are pots and pans of every conceivable size in the kitchen. There's also copies of cooking magazines, and oh, so many books. But those are things we use and re-read.

My first home on my own was a showpiece.  Three levels, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, full of beautiful new furniture, art and all the trappings of success.  I spent all of my time and money maintaining it—which left little time or money for anything else. I liked to say I loved it, yet after another night alone in that place, but for Barkley, I had to admit to myself that there was a visceral response to the terrible loneliness of that open space, and I yearned for the lean days where life was simple and full of hope.

Giving most of it to charity; paring it down to just those things I really cherished, was the most liberating thing I've ever done.

I remember standing out that night in the woods a few weeks after I sold the house, duty having called, finding sense in the senseless, finding my purpose even as sparrows fall to earth. People watching from a distance would think me too quiet, too still, shouldn't this activity be a frenzy of lights and motion, like on TV?  But there is a great activity in being the quiet observer, standing in a stillness that smells of silence,  breathing in so many scents in damp cold air. Sweat, blood and a flower that only blooms in the dark, the wind so scant it's like breath on a mirror. Each smell blended yet distinct, always overlaid with the copper tang of life spilled. The air hums along to the nights quiet as all I see, smell and feel, forms into a substance I can almost feel on my flesh, capturing it, recording it there in the stillness. The truth is often still, inarticulate, not knowing it is the truth.

I knew then what my reality was, and it was not that house full of "things" Our reality is held only by us, not by others. They can only see the show, never really knowing what they are truly seeing.

Now my house is tiny, warm, full of the abandoned and reclaimed, almost every bit of wooden furniture rescued from a curb and restored. So much history here, so much laughter as that work was done. I look at it now, not with that quick glance that is a short day, greedily grabbed and then forgotten, but in the sustained light of memories made.

I remember the last round of cleaning before I moved here, an old broken washing machine left out by the trash where it soon disappeared as planned, by others that look to take what is cast off and make something worthwhile from it. There were also bags of trash and non-repairable clothing and such out in the bin to be discarded. The sun was setting, the sky and the horizon welded in one bright spark, soon to be snuffed out.  Everything around me dissolved into that last bit of warmth, bags of trash, heavy in my arms, everything in them at one time, fashioned out of love, duty or desire, which all bear their own weights.

Then, with everything out to be picked up, it was time to call Dad. For Dad is the one, person, more than anyone I know, who understands the importance of letting go and holding on.

I've written of it here before, as it's a journey many a family has been on,   Seventeen years into a happy remarriage after my Mom died from cancer, my stepmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She had long term care insurance, something she and her late husband had policies for. It covered nursing care, but Dad steadfastly refused to put her in a home, caring for her at home, even in his own declining years.

The disease's progression was as predictable as its course was certain.  Mood swings and aggression, words that made no sense, dropping to the floor like marbles, tears as she tried to mentally gather them up, anger at the very air around her. She always was gentle with my Dad though. Only with him would she remain calm, the reasoning that was blind and deaf somehow responding to something in him that her mind could still see.

Dad cared for her at home, no matter how bad it got. We couldn't visit, for we were strangers, and she'd go into a hysterical fury if we tried to enter the home. Dad was her calm and her constant. We arranged for someone to come in and lend a hand a few hours a week with the cooking and housework but he refused to let anyone else care for "his girl" or to send her to skilled nursing care. When she passed, it was quite sudden, after she contracted pneumonia. From her sudden coughing to her collapse, was just days.

Sometimes when you get to the far edge, the edge just breaks away.

We laid her to rest on a tree-covered hilltop. We visit, we bring flowers, we hug dhed some tears, neither of us immune to having our heart broken. Then we smile through the tears, sharing their stories as we make the long trip home to photos and a little stuffed bear wearing the colors of the flag.

One of those photos is one of her and  Dad on their first date, and you could see something in their smiles that would be lost on so many people. Not many people could have cared for her by themselves as my Dad did, for so long.  But I understand.  Love is a story that tells itself.

On my couch is the form of a black dog. Dumped during the holidays—heartworm positive at a high kill shelter. She responds with a heartbreaking and plaintive urgency to the sound of small children laughing as well as men walking while smoking a cigarette.  The first time I witnessed it, I cried. Apparently, she was with a family, with a smoker—money for cigarettes but not for the medicine that would have kept her safe.

Rescued, and recovering from a sometimes brutal treatment for the disease; we adopted her.  We've added a second rescue - a 100-pound yellow Lab who was rescued from a dark pen at a breeders.  She'd never known a couch, or grass, or human physical affection.  She was the dog equivalent of cattle and the joy she has brought to us as she discovers a new life has brought us both even more joy than we had with just Abby Lab.  For what was one person's decision to be rid of a burden was a saving grace in a house that had a gaping hole in it.

What we hold on to and what we let go, is as telling as the words we say. It took me years to understand it, but the words of Henry David Thoreau make perfect sense to me now.

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it".

I realized that there were certain things, and in the past, even certain people, that simply violated my sense of thrift, exacting things out of me well beyond their worth. That concept was lost to me when I was young, but as I got older, with truth stripped of its cloak of immortality, it was clear.

As I take out some things to be picked up by AmVets, I look around me. Shadows move like ghosts over the sun, deepening the grass to the color of jewels. The last remnants of the last snowstorm have melted, the dark earth trembling to release spring's flowers in the coming months.  At the side of a house, an old trellis that needs to be repaired before new life grabs onto it yet again.  I gather it close to my chest to take it inside to be mended, rather than tossed away.  This is my home I think, as I bend my face down to it, breathing in the scent of old wood, holding the weight securely as I move inside.  I could bury my face in it, this small thing to be salvaged from this place that I had always been seeking.

Home and love, love and desire, can be what propels us silently onward.  Hope and love,  love and desire, can also be mere sounds that people who have never hoped or loved or desired have for what they never possessed, and will not until such time as they forget the words. 
 - LBJ

Solar Powered Dog

Lorelei Lab - our puppy mill rescue dog adopted early this summer.

I think a nap in the sun sounds good right now.

Some Days are Like That

There are just some days you need some comfort food to make it all better. For some it's "bath day" (Barkley was NEVER a fan) or for others, it's a whole day of meetings which can sometimes be more tiring than being busy with having eight fires at once to put out.

So for tonight. . .

Easy Baked Mac and Cheese. I love the "just like Mom made" stuff with ham and onions and homemade roux, (and I have an incredibly good one if anyone wants it).. But some days you just need EASY. This one is. But is also delicious and unbelievably creamy. You can assemble it in 15 minutes, if you get out the ingredients ahead of time, while you get out of your work clothes and take the dog outside.

This recipe has been made for potlucks many times and the dish is quickly scraped clean.

You start with some Cabot extra sharp cheddar (or Tillamock for those lucky folks that can find it out West) and (don't faint) a little bit of Velveeta to make it creamy and a can of Campbell's Cheese soup.

Toss in the rest (which included a dash of cayenne pepper for a bit of heat).

Bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle a little more cheddar on top and bake a bit more.

It's the perfect plate of comfort food.

click on photos for the full effect

4 cups macaroni (dry) cooked
1/4 cup real butter, melt onto drained pasta

Stir in a generous 2 cups shredded good qualityCheddar (about 8 ounces)
1 can cheddar cheese soup
8 ounces processed cheese spread
(all at room temperature)

Stir until mostly melted

Add in 3 eggs whisked into 1 can evaporated milk, a pinch of nutmeg and two pinches of cayenne and 1/4 teaspoon white pepper.

Bake at 325 for 20 minutes covered with foil. Stir well and remove foil. Sprinkle on about 1/2 cup  cheddar cheese and bake another 15-20 minutes, uncovered, until cheese on top is melted and starting to brown on the edges of the pan.

If you wish to go crazy and add an extra five minutes to it, chopped bacon and/or jalapeno is awesome stirred into it before cooking, but it still shines, even plain.

Enjoy.
This is neither low fat or low sodium, and is  really is intended as a side dish for ham or pork or meatloaf.  But I have to say, I loaded up my plate and it was SO worth it.

Say CHEESE!!!

Tuesday Smiles

I don't care what your political persuasion is, this is just dog-gone funny.

Sunday Black and White - Life in an Old House

 What is a day like in a hundred-year-old home with no television?

It's soft light through the windows as all is quiet.

It's books, so many books.

 It's seeing your life reflected in those things that surround you.

It's the sound of music of generations ago.

It's board games played while bread bakes in the oven and the dog slumbers nearby.

 It's antique lace, and things few know how to make any more.

It's things from the ground and the garden collected to be beauty or nourishment.

It's the sounds from a shop, things being repaired or built

 to make the home stronger.

It's soft laughter and amber liquid, there in that quiet house

 where you will soon lay your head.