Broken Branches – the Swennes Beach House

Mom knew she was home the minute she drove over the Oregon California border.  But it was the beach house in Manzanita  Oregon that brought tears to her eyes and stirred her spirit.  She would gather up her scattered life and put it all together so it had meaning there.  That smell of ocean sea weed, salty and full of iron and fish with the musty of the beach house was an elixir for her.  The house was like her parents always being alive even though they had passed away many years ago; they rested in every corner, in the furniture and in the kitchen.  The smell of coffee, bacon and eggs, the smell of huckleberry pie in the oven  always welcomed her.  The little house sounded with the inhaling and exhaling of the ocean just two blocks away. 

The white two story house with the slanted roof and blue door had been a wedding gift to her parents. Her father would build the house on the lot for his eighteen year old bride. They would raise their four daughters there. They would see their many grandchildren run in and out and up and down the stairs and through the blue door with excitement. It was summertime and school was out. 

I remember being afraid of the cross eyed deer’s head with ornaments on his horns that sat in the space that separated the attic and the door way to the upstairs room.  Esak.  I would stop to stare at it awhile before quickly dodging Esak and running downstairs. I ran past the book shelves that lined the walls along the stairs. I ran my fingers along the books that were all well read and dog eared. I ran past the table with its jigsaw puzzle that only gets worked on at night and when the weather was cold and stormy. I ran in the kitchen to the smell of clams cooking.  My aunts would be gathered .  I was scared that Esak would  chase me. I loved to hear the old stories…of the time mom was shooting rabbits from the front yard.  Her father would come home with a nearby farmer.  He would say that mom shot one of his heifers a mile away.  The farmer was bereft. But this was just a joke papa said as my mother started to cry.

When the house burned down, the whole family grieved  the loss of an important family member.  IT was like losing your history.  Esak would be found smouldering in front of the wreckage of the house in embers.  Aunt Karene would find her baby buggy. Her earliest memories of times in this house.  She remembered when it was a tent with rolled up walls.  It was always sunny. She would collect rocks and shell and the knarled driftwood. Dig for clams. She remembered the house being built first a small one story and then a two story house with the blue door and the slanted roof. Mom would say it was like someone died. She grieved. 

Eventually, my aunts would rebuild the house. 

I would come back to this scene years later.  A California girl.  Mill Valley California was my home of 38 years.  But I would come back here to the scene of many childhood memories of mom and me to cast mom’s ashes onto Manzanita beach and in the garden of the Swennes beach house .

I remember, I remember  Fourth of July parades and fire works. Karene’s famous spegetti and salad.  Hot cocoa and marshmallows over a fire on the beach.  Of rolling down the doons and dancing in the sand.  Of cold a stormy weather outside, of being bundled up in front of the fire place keeping warm and safe,  Of digging for clams.

I remember, I remember this is a house of long lazy summers, of honeymoons and walks hand in hand along the sand with the fog rolling in.  

I remember, I remember mom telling me she came up from California to be with her mother as she was dying.  Her mother would stay at the beach house during her dying period.  She would teach her self French, because you never know, miracles do happen, but then again, they may speak French in Heaven. She would read and read books of around the world.  When she got too weak to hold the books, Papa ripped off the covers for her so that they wouldn’t be too heavy for her to hold.  When that was too much, Papa read to her.  

I thought of this years later as I was scattering moms ashes. I was alone. I had a hard time sharing my grief then.  I knew it was wrong to not include others. But I was always a difficult person, often negative.  When I had my nervous breakdown in 1994, My paranoia and psychosis alienated most of my mothers family. I often did irresponsible things that were hurtful to them and others.  I had a hard time sharing my grief.  This would make them mad, I know.  This is a town and a house that spoke of memories shared.  

The house was locked, so I walked around it and scattered on vile of mom’s ashes in the garden.  I heard the birds chirping and in the distance the seagulls caw calling on the beach.  Calling me to come smell and taste the ocean air and the smells of seaweed and wood smoke.  Seagulls are picking at crabs and fish that had washed ashore.  There is no litter, this is a loved place. A place of calmness of my scattered thoughts and broken life.  I was here with the memory of the young police officer that built the house for his eighteen year old bride, a house that they would raise their 4 daughters in.

I climbed down the craggy boulders that make the seawall imaging doing this with my sisters, cousins and dogs. I took off my shoes and walked along the shore line. I could feel  The wet of the salty waves against my legs and The wet sand in between my toes. I opened the vial that was all that was left of my mother and let the wind carry it along the waves and out to sea. Good by mom, I cry, I love you.