This year our family will be adding a room to the back, extending the deck, and putting in a foundation, a move deemed necessary by the association in the tiny community of Mill Creek.
That's the detail oriented background.
The Cabin has been in our family since it was put together--er, built--by my great-grandfather Merlin (seriously) and his brother-in-law Al. My mom has pictures of herself and her siblings and her cousins as kids romping around the Cabin's grounds and the nearby forest. When they became parents, they brought their kids, us, my cousins and our second cousins. Now that Norm has been added to the family, he's brought his youngin', Norman, to the grounds, as I suppose we will similarly do.
Everybody has fond memories of coming to the Cabin. The smell of the pine trees in that crisp altitude air is lodged deep in my brain. The sound the stairs make when you truck up and down them has a home as a deep memory sound. The meadow right outside the play area and before the forest starts, where my dad and brother and I would lounge during the moonless nights and stare at the starry sky. I've never seen so many stars before or since.
Because there were my mom and her two siblings, and their three cousins, and the two groups from my grandmother's generation, with eight possible groups, a schedule was made to sign up for visiting days. This is still in place. My dad, when we were kids, would always shoot for new moon times, when the sky was free of the moon's light pollution.
I remember when the television was first introduced--amid much resistance from others. It has a VCR attached, and that was the key. The trips, up until then, were about exploring the woods, and the creek, and the volcano and about reading, reading I tells ya'...we were always expected to finish a certain reading list. Well, once the VCR and TV were allowed in, it gave us the ability to stay up later watching movies than we otherwise would have been able to reading or putting together puzzles. It does, though, change the dynamic of the visit. Now it's a DVD player, of course.
For fun, when not out frolicking on the forest, we used to set peanuts up on the deck's banister to lure the blue jays. Charlie was the name we gave to them, or it was the name passed down from our parents to us for the jays. But, once Charlie swooped down to get the peanut, we'd blast him with a squirt gun. This kind of thing kept us entertained for hours, as the reluctant blue jays were mostly willing to take the shots to get the nuts.
I remember coming down the stairs in the mornings to the smell of the wood burning stove going and heating the entire bottom floor (the days were warm but the mornings cool) mixed with the smell of cooking bacon. My grandmother would be up cooking away, and she'd ask if we were ready for some hot cocoa; she'd warm it up in a tiny sauce pot. Behind everything would be the background smell of that wonderful pine, permeating every facet of the Cabin experience.
It was that pine forest that constructed my understanding of forests that endured until our cross country trip in 1990. I know that I was only 11 then, but that trip changed my understanding of forests. Up until then, the only forests that I ever conceived of were rain forests--they were on the news and important to our globe--and the sugar pine forests in which our Cabin lives. Seeing a wide swath of the country opened me up to the notion of leafy forests that weren't rain forests.
I never fully appreciated the Cabin while I was young and living close by and frequently indulging in the kinds of substances that make the forest so much more fun. I did take Corrie back in 2004, and we climbed Lassen and had beers afterward.
Here's a picture of the Cabin and the soon to be changed deck. It looks so small in person, but inside it looks just right. The side door, seen here on the left, is the main entrance.
This a view from the deck of the play area before the meadow. It's like you've just come outside that side door. There used to be a swing on one branch, and at one point there were two hammocks set up between trees in the area to the left of this picture.
Our Cabin is the last one before the forest grounds start, and, if you look close, you can see a yellow and black sign in the picture below. It's new, at least for me, and designates where the property line ends and the National Forest begins.
This is the inside of the Cabin, and while the furniture and their orientation change, it always retains a hint of the past.
These are the tight stairs leading up to the upper floor, where the sleeping quarters are.
Here's a brief look at the sleeping quarters. There are three beds in a row, one across from them under the sloped eaves, exposed rafters, making this area rather cold in the morning, and a door that separates the "adults" bedroom from kids quarters. In the bedroom, the rafters aren't exposed, and the bed is a double.
When we were kids up here visiting, our grandma would sleep downstairs in a day bed next to the bathroom. It's because of the stairs and lack of privacy that the extra room is being added. This type of sleeping arrangement allows/forces the kids to become closer and bond. Parents always slept in the closed door room up here.
I, for some reason, always liked the bed under the sloping roof, despite the fact that I hit my head more than once. I still consider it "my spot". My family can correct me at their leisure if they feel like I'm wrong.
Artsy projects were also things we liked to do while visiting, and in 2004, Corrie and I added to the legacy with this piece. I remember thinking on this recent trip that maybe Corrie painted something on our trip 8 years before...and as I tried to remember, this little painting/drawing was looking right at me, and I eventually saw it.
Ahh, the Meadow. Just past a tiny brook lies the Meadow, and just past the Meadow lies the start of the Forest. The meadow's shape and dimensions have shifted slightly over the years, but it remains a moment of sublime existence captured and ready to re-affect somebody.
Just beyond the meadow, the forest gave us kids a chance to explore, to horse around, to play, and to keep busy. As our imaginations developed and our attitudes matured, the forest became that binding connector to each other and to nature. The felled behemoth of a tree that was slowly returning to the Earth that we played on each summer...from it's spot on the forest floor it taught us as much about death and reincarnation as anything else in the world could have, and it was something we got to jump on and grab and smell and taste it on our sweaty hands and listen as it crumbled.
At some point we'd turn away from the direction of the road. See, the forest lived in a wedge that was bordered on the left, or up-side, by the road, and on the right, or down-side, by the steep slope down the the creek. We'd have to have ventured rather far, like past maybe the second meadow, before we turned for the creek. There was a meadow pretty far into the forest, and then a smaller second meadow, and if I remember correctly, if was after then that it made sense to make the turn for the creek. If you turned too early, the way to the creek would harder and farther than necessary.
When you finally made it you could play in the coldest damn ice runoff you've ever felt. It tasted so good, even though you weren't supposed to drink it. Heh, kids...
Returning to the Cabin was at once sad, in that our forest adventure from the day was winding down, but our spirits were lifted when we though of all the Charlie's we still needed to squirt and all the awesome food there was to eat---sandwiches and watermelon and peanuts.
Here's the look of the final approach to the Cabin coming from the meadow, and ultimately, the forest.
This trip was a working Saturday, and my brother and I and our Uncle Rich only got to spend a few hours hauling stuff from underneath the deck in preparations for the construction guys. This is pretty much all there was, loaded into the rented dumpster.
I set my camera on the stump we all used to use for family portraits and set the timer. That's Dan and Uncle Rich and me, as we were getting ready to leave.
The trip was short, but worth it. Corrie and I left LB Friday night and made it to Sac in the we morning hours late Friday/early Saturday in six hours. Dan drove us to the Cabin, and back, on Saturday, three hours up and three hours back. Corrie and I left for LB Sunday after brunch with and old friend in downtown Sac, and another six hours.
It was a lot of car time for such a little amount of work, but that's the kind of pull the Cabin has over her subjects. I've been one of the more wayward sons, as far as visits and face time with the thin walls and rarefied air, but it was necessary for me. It was necessary for me to reclaim something from my past, and something of my inner fabric.
