The Joy of Coming Home - The Old Becomes New Again

When I came "home" to Sleepy Hollow, my paternal family's old ancestrial homestead from the 1870s snuggled deep in the California Coastal Redwood Forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, I had so completely lost touch with not only the family, but this home that was always our joyful summer playground all the year's of my childhood. When I thought back on the times spent there, it was always with great happiness and the sense that the "family" and our cabin in the woods had always been there and would of course always be. Then, reality set in....

So many years away from the old place.... all the while I agonized over the fact that we members of the immediate present day family had lost touch and had all gone off into the four directions to begin and nurture our own families with children who would walk the family heritage and legacy into the future. The problem was, we all were so busy with the raising of our children we rarely got down to the cabin and when we did, from pure time wear and neglect, there were always many big problems to immediately deal with, and one would spend the entirety of the short stay, cleaning up enormous messes. After many trips to the cabin to find it cold, dark, wet, dank, musty and nearly completely uninhabitable, the heartbreak for me was just too much. I was blessed with the opportunity at this particular junction in my life, as my children were now all grown and required me none, to move into the old Lady in the Sleepy Hollow and begin the long-term clean up of the "Black Hole" as I affectionately began to call it. The mystical aspects of the house are miraculous and amazing, however other stories for another time... What I began to find great remembering and joy in was the "coming home" aspect of the process of restoration. As the 30+ years had slipped away since the cabin had been blessed with semi-regular attention, many of the simple and symbolic antique items had been carried off, either by thieves, or various family members who had seen fit to "rescue" these little family treasures and take them home for safe keeping. Things also went out in all directions, some to never be seen again, but I was delighted with those simple items I was able to bring back home to the cabin. Strangely, those items were the ones I remembered the most as a child and held the most significance for me as I spent time with my sweet GrammyTeddy while she was alive. Grammy Teddy, my father's mother, was always at the cabin it seemed to my child's mind, for that is where I knew her in the summers only. She baked cookies, apple and blackberry pies (and tiny tarts for me) from the fruit we children picked from the enormous bushes that grew alongside the road. What a thrill I remember as I watched her every move while she baked, amazed at the idea that we could pick fresh berries and Grammy could do such magic, making tasty sweet warm goodness in a pie in just hours. Yum! My first late summer harvest of berries in 2012 provided enough for three pies as I put them together at the very table Grammy had with me watching back in the 60s. She had taught me well and upon completion of my first bake in the cabin, I raised my glass over my steaming blackberry pies and saluted..."These are for you Grammy!", I announced with a sense of gratitude and satisfaction that would be hard to describe. I had indeed come home. The old was new again. There was great joy in re-manifesting the traditions once again when for so long it had seemed no one cared that they had died here. I cared... very much. This family had been steeped in death for too long and I wanted nothing more than to bring life, thriving life, back again. I felt great delight as neighbors would come by and say "The cabin feels full of life", many having lived in the area for several decades and yet never seen thriving life in the cabin. This was a big deal. There are many other small things from the Tiger Lilies I replanted in the front yard, remembering my Mom when she had first planted them so many years back. The exotic beauty of the lilies was always a favorite of mine. Anyway, I took effort to put them back after nearly 40 years. Now I smile and remember my mother every time they sprout up and burst into bloom again. My mother is there... in the garden with me as I breathe in and thoroughly enjoy the blossoms. The old mantle clock is another piece. Dated to the late 1800s, it sat in an old china cabinet and never worked as far back as anyone could remember. Covered with dust and neglected for God only knows how many decades, I had secretly admired and was fascinated with the mysterious old piece. My father had rescued the clock in more recent times and I was able to bring it home to the cabin. A little tinkering and before I knew it, it was chiming on the hour and on the half so sweetly. Who knew when the last time the cabin had heard those pretty bells. I took great joy in bring this symbol of enduring time home again, and this time... to work after more than a half century. Such a simple pleasure. I now take "Joy"...as often as possible. My father's oldest sister was named "Joy". She had died in her early twenties and all the joy literally seemed to die in my father's family. It did not take much for me to realize that now I had moved into the ancestral home, Auntie Joy, along with all the other ancestors who were buried not too far down the road in Santa Cruz, were indeed here with me. I have always had the feeling they are all watching me... from the other side. The sense of this is palpable and visitors to the cabin have noted this as well. I just hope they are all pleased with how the restoration of family and home is coming along. I am, and every once in a while, I strongly get the sense that they are not only happy but helping out as well, as living life in the cabin is thick with synchronicity, co-incidence and mysterious knocks upon the walls. Just too eerie at times... but I've gotten used to the "crowd", as it had always been when it was alive. The cabin has gone through many incarnations, just since I have been in occupation over the past three years. It has been a long process of cleaning and clearing, replacing and replanting. It has been a sorting out of a most holistic type - physical, mental, emotional and especially spiritual of a long family history, mostly not so nice. What an amazing opportunity of grace for me, what an amazing task, a labor of love, a rescue complete. And, oh what a joy! Joy has truly returned. For good this time, I hope and remain ever vigilant and mindful. It truly is, a karmic turning of times and for the first time, my own children are excited about the place and it's ancestral heritage value. The legacy will continue and I can eventually rest in peace assured, with the rest of the "spiritual bunch" that all the hard hand-hewn work back in the day of horses and pack irons of timbering these woods, was not in vain, despite their mischievous egos of the time, but again, those are stories for another time. Blessed Be the Old Gal in the Sleepy Hollow! May She endure for ages to come... with a little help, from the "other side"~ God willing if the creek don't rise!