The Face In The Glass, Or Home

In the middle of the redwoods, nestled in fog and rain, with the distant sound of a sea lion's bark interrupting the silence, there is a house that my uncle designed and my dad helped build. Attached to this house is a long wooden deck, where you can lean against the railing and look down a hillside of madrones and manzanitas and redwood trees towards the ocean. This is the railing against which my dad leans to smoke, and I lean to nurse a gin and tonic.

I'm here this weekend for peace and quiet. I won't try to define what this home means to me, because you can't tell people what a childhood sanctuary means; or maybe you can, but it won't convey the same impact as it would to have them in that place with you, so you can share the physical experience. And even that is never going to capture exactly how you yourself feel about it.

Yesterday evening, I had my back to the ocean, and caught my reflection in one of the many sliding glass doors that comprise the wall.

Inside the house, there is a picture of my dad in his long-haired, mustached carpenter days, holding court before the fellow workers during the construction. And as I looked at my ghostly, mirrored image in the door, it made me think of that picture. That's when I took the above photos, admittedly blurry, admittedly taken with a cell phone's camera.

When I went back inside, my uncle said, "I have good news and bad news for you."

"What's that?"

"You're starting to look like your father and your grandfathers, both of them."

I guess that means this Sonoma Coast is home in the same way Montana is. And that is fine by me.