I learned to walk on your front porch. Kissed a boy there too. Painted my toenails with my cousins on your sunny deck. I’ve done dishes with Grandma and Mom and now my grown daughters overlooking your mountain lake. Your coffee pots are nearly 50 years old and so are you, my dearest cabin.

Your battered and worn dish pans have bathed babies and watered horses and boiled crawdads.

We were born the same year. You’ve seen so much of me, and I’ve loved so much of you. Your quiet mornings and lazy afternoons. Your starry nights and thundering rain storms. Your shy deer and determined woodpeckers.

We open you in June and close you come September because your mountain road disappears with the snowfall and then only snowmobiles can find you.

You’ve watched me grow up and I’ve watched my parents grow old beneath your ponderosa pines.

I learned to play poker under a kerosene lantern in your living room. Your only room besides your loft with eight beds. We kids mastered hide and seek in your meadow. Were taught to stack wood on your deck. And learned how to water ski in your lake where the wind rises every afternoon, rippling the water, rushing through the pines.

Now my kids are learning the same thing.

We’ve never missed a summer with you. Even when I lived in Germany, I flew home to California and drove three hours just to see you. Your wide, green meadow and clear, cold lake where loons dive and trout surface and honkers nest every summer.

I’ve realized the ones we love don’t last forever, and neither will you. Someday you will crumble, maybe under the Sierra snow pack. But before this, what would you say to the family who built you? Who has enjoyed you so much?

Would you tell us to “Slow down,” perhaps.

“Don’t work so hard.”

“Come and see me more often.”

“Life is short.”

“Make it sweet.”

“Grill more burgers.”

“Eat more s’mores.”

“Sing louder at the bonfire.”

“Swim longer in the lake.” 

“Stop and listen to the wind in the pines.”

“And don’t forget summer is a season.”

“Don’t miss the seasons of your life.”

“Some seasons are good.”

“Some not so good.”

“But God is always good.”

“Come see me when you can.”

“The chipmunks are waiting for your food

and the wildflowers are for you, my cabin people.”