An Open Letter To The New Family Residing At 23537 Vineyard Road

“Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.

On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from her fingers.

We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth.”

― L.M. Montgomery, The Golden Road

Wink & A Smile

I remember the days, of just keeping time

Of hanging around in sleepy towns, forever

Back roads empty for miles

Well you can't have a dream and cut it to fit

But when I saw you I knew, we'd go together

Like a wink and a smile

The home where I spent the formative years of my existence, my childhood home, has been released from the hold of my family.  A new family will take up residence.  The reality of that has been swirling through my mind.  For many years now, I have recognized the existence of home as not a material, but that of within.  However, with the advent of Covid-19 and the need to quarantine, to lock ourselves within the buildings of our houses, as it were, it has given pause to reflect on the natural of the physical building of which I reside, both today and in the past.  

Whatever the place, whether I walk within or just recall in my mind's eye, it as if the voices of the memory ring off the very walls, a myriad of emotions fill those echoes of times past.  This is a reality in so much of my past, however the duration I have resided or spent within the confines of those walls.  The memory of the place clings within me as my memory clings within it.  Is it a real possibility that the physical manifestation of home is more than just a material object but a true living embodiment of our soul's and heart's cry?

I am beginning to realize the answer is a positive.  

So, to the family who takes over my childhood home, I now speak.  My heart is filled with hope and gratitude for your journey within those walls, thankful for the time I spent, the reality that all that partake within is a truth that has shaped my existence and will never cease to be, will always be a part of my being.

I wish the same for each of you.  I do hope that the memories of that residence which cling to the walls, echoing off with ringing tones throughout the landscape, happily fill your days.  I hope with every fibre of my being that your residing there is filled with the plethora of emotion I leave within and move forward beyond in my life.  

In those walls are infused, the memory of little children's feet, both mine, my siblings, and their children, running down the hallways, noisily happy and sometimes not so, chattering through the rooms.  The feet of the children were followed lovingly and loyally by an assortment of beloved furry friends, pets whose spirits remain on the property.  These spirits, although left behind by me, welcome you with open hearts with wishes to show you the delights they still hold dear in their departed life.  Allow them to guide as the purity of their animal hearts is beyond that of the humans that inhabited it.  As most animals of all variety, they wish no ill will upon you.  

Top L to R, me with kitten Calvin & Hobbes, my cat, Jamocha Almond Fudge, 

Ollie (who looks dangerous but isn't), Calvin & Hobbes again.  Bottom: me with my side-kick and world's best doggie ever, Ollie!

There were Christmas holidays spent in the living room, bursting over with the excitement of Santa's visits and then in the elder years, the cherished memories of mimosas, muffins, and family gatherings.  Birthday parties, slumber parties, late night giggle sessions and all night computer sessions in online chat rooms (a good part of my youth was spent in the nineties), sneaking out for midnight meet-ups with friends, long hikes in the woods and hills, dips in the coolness of the lake, whether clothed or not.  

Playing at the beach, slumber birthday parties, & school fun!

We were hired as babysitters, took care of neighbors' horses and cats, tended gardens for a little extra money.  We were freely allowed to roam the neighborhood at all times of the year without any fears of our parents.  In my teenage years, I longed for the intrigue and busyness of the city life but today I am grateful in a wide plethora of ways for the freedom I was allowed in my youth time in that neighborhood.  To this day, I still hold strong connection to the friends' I grew up alongside, memories of moonlit walks, sail boat rides, the 4th of July games, the Halloween parties and trick or treating.  

Corinne & I, after our original choreographed piece of Cats

My best friend, Corinne, more of a sister than any other, who I cherish in so many ways was one of the strongest allies during the emotional upheaval of middle school life and through the fate of life we were brought back together in our twenties as we faced these demons at therapist office's next door to each other.  The growth of our emotional health has been a universal journey we share side by side, and would be non-existent without our formative years growing up in the same neighborhood.

Me with my first boyfriend, Monte Weatherby (deceased), on our way to my first prom!

Sophomore Year Prom!!  L to R, Me, my boyfriend, Matt, my best friend, John, and his girl

friend, Janiene (also my best friend)

me with my soul sister, Silvia!  (exchange student from Switzerland)

My siblings and I named several of the landmarks on our property we leave behind.  The little creek by my playhouse (lovingly crafted by my father and grand-father, when I was in first grade ( I still have those memories of it being built), was named Lost Canoe Creek, so named for the plastic toy canoe my brother lost in it around age ten (found later in his early twenties, however, "Found Canoe Creek" never had the same ring to it).  The mystical grove of pine trees surrounding the stone rock seemingly a perch for the fairies to hold their mysterious rituals called "Simgale" by my eldest brother.  In the old days, hammocks were hung and summers were spent by me reading leisurely for hours or I played in the coolness of the shade.

In My Room!

My kitty, Jamocha (not so happy at the moment) and I.

I am particularly proud of the Beverly Hills, 90210 actresses behind me.  
I was quite the fan-girl indeed!

There is so much more I could say, too much to list here.  It is enough to recall that each moment, although not able to be listed, is a valuable asset upon my soul.  Beloved tv shows whose cast members are still loved today (Night Court, Beverly Hills 90210, Seinfeld, to name a few), my bedroom walls plastered with their images, movie nights with pizza for dinner....so many many moments...you might find a sticker still fixed upon one of the bedroom windows, if my parents' missed it in the cleaning (hopefully so), it's my gift left for you, a physical manifestation of my child soul still residing there with yours. 

So, too, new residents I wish for you to build upon and form these new memories, with gratitude for the foundation that shaped me and the lessons that inspired my eternal emotional growth, I release this home to your loving and capable hands.  

I ask as I entrust her to you that you cherish and nurture her well as I know she will do the very same for you.

I can see your face

In our secret place

You're not just a memory

Say goodbye to yesterday (the dream)

Those are words I'll never say (I'll never say)

This used to be my playground (used to be)

This used to be our pride and joy

This used to be the place we ran to

That no one in the world could dare destroy

This used to be our playground (used to be)

This used to be our childhood dream

This used to be the place we ran to

I wish you were standing here with me

This Used To Be My Playground

So, what did you think? Got something to say? Feel free to comment below and I will respond.

The Thriving Artist is a subset of Cafe-Girl Productions, Inc, a film and media company with the sole purpose of benefiting the world for the better.  Support us at: www.patreon.com/cafegirlproductions

The House On The Corner

In my neighborhood as a young child, there was this old house, long since abandoned by its original owners. 

Let me back track, I grew up in a rural country club environment, emphasis on the rural.  When I say 'country club', don't let your mind run crazy with the golf club, the private meals, focus solely on the country part of it and you are basically right there.

But like any country club type deals, we had a lot of families that owned second homes in our neighborhood and up they would trek from the faraway city of San Francisco and its surrounding areas (well, its really only about an hour north, but for a smallish child that's a trek), for the summer months and weekends.

We called them the "weekenders".  We were pretty creative with our nicknames, weren't we? True to form, we were called the "year-rounders".  Oh, the depths of our creativity!  See,  we described someone as such, "Oh so and so, they are a weekender" meaning we only see them on certain weekends or lengths of time during the summer months, and otherwise their house is empty and so very very alone.

That said, for the smattering of kids that were like me, year-rounders, we had free roaming rights of the neighborhood.  Thus, we are the ones that truly can say we grew up there.  Yes, my friends from childhood that were, in fact, weekenders, or big city snobs as I jokingly called my friend, Matt, can say they spent their childhood in my neighborhood called, "The Vineyards" (which at the time there was no single person with a 'vineyard' and Sonoma County, at the time, was yet to truly become the booming wine industry it is today, so why someone decided that's what it should be called was a mystery that alluded discovery in my childhood).  But its us 'year-rounders' who survived not just the flood of '86, and again, '95, and then once again for good measure, '97, who also suffered the boredom of trying desperately to fill up the time when there was just nothing to do, no one to talk to, until maybe that sporadic moment when something unusual happened like a friend appeared, or someone moved in that you'd never seen before, and you spent all sorts of time speculating on them and not actually talking to them.  It wasn't the weekenders, like Matt, who came up in the summer and who was entertained by our silly country ways, found fishing, sailing, swimming, and endless hours of Speed (the game not the drug) fascinating.  (Um, Matt, if you are reading this, sorry, dude, I don't mean to be picking on you, you are just a representation of that breed of human called "weekenders", we cool?). Most of our daily lives back then were spent watching tv shows like Punky Brewster, Night Court (for me especially), and Saved By The Bell.  Our life was a tame, very quiet existence, where we spent most of it imagining what life was like in big wildness of the city.  (Or was that just me?)  We dreamed of a way out...

Sometimes throughout the year, there would be parties held at the clubhouse in the center of the neighborhood, smack dab next to the community lake (did I mention the lake?).  The best of these was of course the Halloween Party.  We got to roam pretty freely about the neighborhood in our costumes acquiring our loot of candy, without any fear of the kind of stuff one worries about today, and then afterwards down to the clubhouse for the fun of a very teeny haunted  house, a friendly neighbor lady dressed up as a palm reader, bobbing for apples, oh the fun never stops.

Okay, now back to the mysterious house on the corner.  It was one of the first houses built in the "Vineyards".  It was, and is, a deep grey house set back into a wooded tree lined driveway.  Trees grew up through both the front and back porch.  What's more, furniture, books, a tv, a radio all were left as they had been when the owners had been there.  The electricity was still connected, the phone still rang, off the hook.  It still  had a phone number you could call, and call we did.  (Remember when I said there wasn't much to do?)  As wee young folk, we'd peek in the windows, trying to out scare each other with the mysterious hauntings we would see.  "Look, there's a ghost!"  "Where?" "There."  "Oh I see it."

Later on, in my pre-teen years, I told my friends a ghost story about a young girl who had lived there that had a heart shaped birthmark on her cheek.  She fell in love with a guy that died under somewhat strange circumstances, some random war perhaps, and she just waited and waited for him in a tree on  the front porch, wouldn't get down, did not eat or anything, grew more and more pale, the heart shaped birthmark increasing in its redness until one day, she fell to her death, like four feet.  See, I'd say, here's the mark where her head crashed into the brick killing her instantly.  Sometimes at night you could see her ghostly presence sitting there, singing and waiting, waiting and singing.  The little neighbor boy down the street from my house (Bobby was his name, See Matt, you aren't the only one I am choosing to pick on) had nightmares because of it.  And, even though I stole the story from a L.M. Montgomery novel I had read, I still thought I saw her from time to time when I walked home in the evening from a friend's house (most likely Corinne, see another friend I'm picking on, Matt!) or randomly walked through the neighborhood late at night empowered by the spirit of the moon.

We found out that the original family had built the house, raised their kids as "weekenders", and then when the kids had grown, had divorced.  Thus, the house just sat full of all of its trappings and memories for us to speculate, ruminate, imagine.

In my early teens, it was rented out by a girl about my age, another weekend-only family, and I struck up a friendship with for the sole purpose of being able to go into that amazingly epic house with all its mystery attached.  I'd invite her to come over on the Saturday evenings when she was in town, when I saw the thrill of the lights on, to get in good with her.  We'd watch my current obsession of a movie, Wayne's World.  (I watched that movie a gazillion times just on my own, in all fairness, until the video itself wore out.  Yeah, I'm old enough that we only had videos for watching movies, so bite me!)

The house represented something untouchable, unattainable.  Like the big city from which Matt hailed (ha ha) and the world beyond, it was something we had yet to see but were always reaching towards, seeking discovery.

Then one day, in early teenage years, we got our wish.  One of our friends, a weekender, discovered that we could all slip through the doggy door at a side door and in we went.  We excitedly and with an air of danger moved through the house, calling to one each other, when we found something interesting.  One friend opened up a closet and joked, "All the skeletons fall out."  I remember that specifically for some reason.  Later on when the colder, bare months of winter would set in, the year-rounders would crawl inside, turn on the heater a bit, and make phone calls.  (We were an inventive rebellious and perhaps a bit odd bunch.)

In my neighborhood as a young child, there was this old house, long since abandoned by its original owners. 

I'd like to dedicate this blog to the aforementioned "Bobby", "Corinne,  the girl who I used to watch Wayne's World and struck up a friendship so I could find out what it was like to live in said house, and to give my heartfelt thankfulness to "Matt" without my ability of picking on him the story could not have been told (well, it could have been, just not in an interesting fashion.)