You can make me be here (but you can't make me smile)
When I look at this picture, so many other pictures flash through my mind that I’m pretty sure the words which follow will fail to capture them. We are standing on the balcony of Cabin 1A in Gold Beach, Oregon at a place called Ireland’s Rustic Lodges. When Greg and I first left Wyoming and Moved to Ashland Oregon in 1984, we found this little Coastal getaway and when we were hired to teach in Crescent City it seemed almost too close to be a real escape, only 50 When Greg and I first left Wyoming and Moved to Ashland Oregon in 1984, we found this little Coastal getaway and when we were hired to teach in Crescent City it seemed almost too close to be a real escape, only 50 miles from home, but we kept going.
You see, that first year away from Wyoming, Thanksgiving was miserable. No family in a thousand miles and no friends yet. The two of us tried being cheerful at the community Thanksgiving dinner but the sense of being disconnected from family really hurt. We knew we needed to create our own traditions. So when we found a little cabin clustered on the beach, with firewood stacked on the porch and a fireplace inside as the only heat source and no phones – we thought it was the perfect place to rent for the long weekend. It became our tradition to cook Turkeys in the kitchen and watch the sunset over the Pacific as we ate.
Over the years, everyone came to join us. My parents were there a couple times, my brothers, my brothers-in-law and nephews and sisters-in-law and friends from Germany and friends from Wyoming and Ashland. We were in one of the cabins when we got a knock on the door from the office manager giving us a message to call and discover that our son’s birth mom was in labor and later we were there when Mom called and a knock sent us to the payphone to fid out that my Dad had died at 8 minutes after midnight. We came with out youngest son, straight out of the Neonatal intensive care unit for some uninterrupted family recovery time. We painted rocks with the boys and their cousins and left them in the flower garden, and we were there when my husband’s sister came back from Africa and gave all 4 nephews spears which they brandished around the cabin while making forts of the couch cushions and twin size mattresses.
This picture was about the last time we were there, maybe the last time. The cabins were sold to the neighboring motel and the fireplaces came out, a hot tub went in, electric heat was added and the boys began having their own separate lives where a long weekend couldn’t interrupt the jobs they needed to pay their rent. There was a bit of loss of amusement at Mom and Dad’s sense of humor going on in those last high school years, and a resentment at having to leave girlfriend’s even overnight. There were scrabble games and beach walks and a sense that there would be a few years before the appeal of family Thanksgivings returned to the boys, but I already anticipate bringing a granddaughter here, and painting rocks and baking pies.
I still get those looks from my grown sons! In fact I don't think I have more than 10 smiling shots between the two of them after the age of 15! What is it with boys and pictures?! I have this dream that someday, maybe when their children are in their teens, of them coming to me and apologizing for all the times they refused to smile or humor me when I wanted a picture. Well, like I said, it is a dream! Great family shot!
What a tight, beautifully wri tten piece with so many years of experiences and changes crystalized against the beautiful back drop in the photo. I think that it's in some rule book somewhere that teenage boys are not allowed facial expressions between the ages of around 15 to 22. Not just in pictures do they display those stone faces.
