The Treehouse Family of the Mystical Coast

Sonya looked out from the porch of her family’s treehouse home. It rested high above the forest floor in a giant Douglas Fir.

Then she nodded to her brother, Terence, who walked across the wooden bridge to the porch, from another treehouse in a neighboring tree.

"That smells delicious," she said to Ezra, her father, who was climbing the wooden steps that wound around the huge tree trunk. He carried hot coffee and cornmeal cakes, baked over the campfire on the ground.

Today they would take more photos.

It all began several years ago.

*****

On a sunny Spring day in the 1890s, Sonya held her colorful, divided skirt up high, while she stepped across the dusty street, surrounded by crowds in San Francisco.

Then, the sixteen year old young woman stepped onto the wooden walkway next to the shops. She gazed at the dark-colored, traditional clothing of the people around her, so similar in design, and at their somber expressions.

Sonya headed straight for the fabric shop. Inside she ignored the dark bolts of material.

On a table at the back, she picked up fabric with a design of emerald green leaves, large pink and red flowers, and bits of blue background.

Then she smiled and added some green and pink ribbons to her shopping bundle and a straw hat that had one side of the brim flipped upward and the other at a rakish angle downward.

She saw a mental vision of the dress and matching hat she would create. People would criticize her for the nontraditional design.

But she felt joy now at the thought of the cheerful colors and the fun she would have shocking others with her playful clothing style.

Even the shop owner gave her a sideways glance with eyebrows raised when she took the payment. 

Sonya left, giggling to herself. Outside, she looked into the bag at the colors again, feeling a jolt of pleasure.

When she got home, she saw her father was taking another of his usual portrait photos of a large family.

Sonya’s mouth drooped when she saw another dull, traditional style portrait set up with stiff poses and serious faces.

That evening she put on another of the modern, divided skirts that fell like wide pants, instead of billowing out like the long, traditional, dresses most women wore in the 1890s. 

Sonya pinned a cluster of flowers sewn from fabric on one side of her hair. She left her hair long and flowing, instead of parted in the middle and drawn back the way the local traditional women wore theirs.

Then she went downstairs and sat at the dark wood table, in the dining room with its ornate drapes and elegant décor. Her father, Ezra, shook his head.

 But he could not help smiling at the daughter he loved.

He said, “What are you up to now, you rascal?”

Sonya smiled and her eyes held glimmers of laughter.

“Whatever do you mean, Papa?” Her voice was innocent and teasing.

The room was peaceful now. But they knew when the rest of the family arrived chaos and tension would appear too.

Ellen, her mother, came into the dining room. She wore a long dark dress with a full skirt, a grey apron over it, her hair pulled severely back into a bun. Her eyes were like buttons without expression.

Ezra took the bundle of mail from Ellen and they began to open the letters and small packages.

Sonya spotted a large, thick envelope. When she read the return address she saw it was from their photographer friends who had moved north.

She slit the edge with a letter opener. Then a bundle of black and white photos spilled out.

Sonya stared. She felt like time stopped.

Her eyes drank in the image of the treehouse resting in the limbs of a colossal-sized fir tree next to a lake where several white egrets flew over the ripples of water.

Her imagination supplied the colors, and Sonya saw an image like the fabric she had purchased earlier that day.

Ezra saw Sonya staring at the photo, unmoving.

“Daughter, are you alright?”

Ellen sighed, wondering what her Sonya was up to now. She felt her love for Sonya being overwhelmed by her fears. Dealing with such a daughter was exhausting.

How could she mold this offspring into a socially acceptable young woman who would fit into San Francisco society?

At that moment Sonya’s three other sisters came into the dining room, each obediently wearing ankle-length, dark, full-skirted dresses, hair pulled into tight buns, their expressions like reflections of their mother.

Sarah, Jane, and Elizabeth looked at the scene. In the dark shadows of the room, Sonya looked like an exotic flower. They could see Sonya seemed to be getting into trouble again.

“What have you got?” Sarah, the oldest, acted like her mother’s assistant.

“Oh, leave her be.” Jane, the middle sister, was used to being a peacemaker.

“What have you done now?” Elizabeth, the second youngest, secretly admired Sonya, but, she was afraid to show it in front of her mother’s stern face.

Next, the three brothers came trooping in.

“You need to work harder in school Jeffrey. What will happen to you when you graduate?” The oldest brother, John, was now working.

He felt it was his duty to herd his two younger brothers, like wild horses, toward a destination.

Terence, the youngest brother, saw Sonya hunched over the photo.

“What’s that, little sister?” Closest to her in age, they had always bonded well. 

The family of nine sat in their straight-backed, dark chairs, in the gloomy dining room.

Sonya looked at them. She jumped up, carrying the photo to her father. 

She suspected that part of his traditional mindset was to keep peace with her mother. 

Her lips curled up in a smile. She sensed that, beneath his exterior, lurked a spirit like hers, yearning for freedom and creativity.

Ezra watched his daughter approaching. His curiosity was aroused.

He admitted to himself he found her to be like a refreshing breeze in the often suffocating atmosphere of the lifestyle imposed by his wife.

Sonya’s face spread into a huge smile. Her feet danced lightly and she put the photo down in front of Ezra with a flourish. Her instincts told her the moment was right.

Ezra looked at the photo and gulped. A beautiful treehouse was nestled in a huge fir tree in a forest by a lake. There was a porch on the treehouse.

His eyes widened. There, sitting on the treehouse porch, with huge smiles, were their friends.

A stairway of wide steps wound around the tree, leading to the log cabin house perched in the tree.

Then Ezra drew in a deeper breath. He saw the wooden walkway bridge leading from the first treehouse to another treehouse.

Sonya leaned over her father’s shoulder. 

“See the other one too.”

“Yes, I see it, daughter.”

Ezra tried to shield the photo from his wife.

Below the photo in big letters were the words, “Come and visit! We would love to see you!”

“Have they lost their senses?” Ellen saw the photo.

“Will you look at that! What fun!” Terence looked entranced. Sonya laughed. 

“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” She spoke impulsively.

She tucked the photo away and stored it in her dresser. It was forgotten for several weeks.

Then one day she took the treehouse photo out again and brought it down to the dinner table.

Sonya passed the photo over to her father. A smile grew on his face. Then he surprised everyone.

Sonya saw her mother’s hard, disapproving stare.

A determined expression came over her father’s face.

Then gleeful laughter erupted from her father. 

“I’ve been thinking I deserve a vacation from work. Why not? We’ve saved up and our photography assistants in training are ready to do simple, traditional portraits on their own.”

Sonya held her breath.

“Maybe we could take a vacation and visit them. This, I would like to see.” He was still chuckling.

Ellen’s mouth formed a straight line. Her eyes were hard and cold.

“I’m not going anywhere. This is nonsense.”

Sarah, the oldest sister, and Jane, the middle sister, said, “We’ll stay here with Mama.”

John had a job. Jeffrey had activities he could not leave either.

Ezra’s mind worked swiftly. He could get tickets on a ship going north for himself, Terence and Sonya. 

The next few days were happy and busy, for Sonya, Terence and Ezra. 

Ellen gave in enough to wear a patient smile. She pictured herself having the ladies circle over for a formal, afternoon tea in the dark dining room.

Sonya took the colorful fabric she purchased on the day the photo arrived and made an outfit.

When it was done, she danced joyfully around the dining room before dinner. Terence and her father. Ezra, laughed, and Ellen frowned. 

Ezra sent a letter to his friends, bought tickets on a ship, and got his photo assistants ready to run the studio.

The day to leave arrived. The rest of the family waved from the San Francisco docks at the three who were on the ship.

Ezra felt a weight lifting. Sonya put on her new outfit and started learning photography. Terence began writing a journal and sketching. 

Back home, Ellen wrote out invitations for a formal tea party. Wearing a rare smile, she began to relax. 

“I would like to order some colorful flowers for a ladies tea party,” she said at the florist shop.

She decided to try a few things that would be less traditional. Ellen did not want to admit to herself that the treehouse had inspired her, too.

Later that day, Ellen stepped in to watch the assistant photographers do the family portraits in the studio.

“Here, let’s add these fresh flowers. And you don’t all need to stand in a line. Why don’t you just cluster around like you are having a conversation?”

The assistants tried her ideas and the families liked the less formal, less traditional photos. 

Ellen admitted to herself that maybe she had been too rigid in the past. 

She began to imagine a time when there would be another trip to the wilderness treehouse. Maybe she would go, too.

Out on the ocean waves, Ezra, Sonya and Terence set up the photo equipment that Ezra had brought and turned one of their rooms into a photo processing studio. This led to other passengers requesting photo portraits.

Sonya wore her green and pink wide pants and her colorful hat.

Passengers spoke amongst themselves. “Where is she from? I love her outfit!”

Terence scribbled fast in his leather journal and other passengers decided to write journals too.

A spirit of whimsy and playfulness developed at the photo studio on the ship. 

“Traditional photos? Not today, we're doing experimental portraits. Would you like to try something different?” Ezra found people liked the idea.

On the deck, Ezra took photos of the crew climbing the rigging, of the distant shores, and of the captain at the wheelhouse.

When they docked in the port of a large bay, Ezra took some of the new photos to the post office and mailed them to Ellen.

When Ellen got the photos, she took them to the newspaper and sold them for a good sum of money.

The photos were popular and the newspaper asked for more.

Then Ellen sent a letter with a copy of the newspaper to the port nearest the treehouse family. 

She knew Ezra said he would check for mail there.

The day came when Ezra, Sonya and Terence disembarked at the port near their friends. The width and height of the fir trees surprised them even though they had seen photos.

Ezra said, “These must be among the largest trees in the world.”

Their friends met them at the rustic wharf with a farm wagon pulled by four horses.

The Spring weather was cool. The trees were emerald green with drops of dew moisture glistening.

Sonya saw giant pink and red flowers, as large as dinner plates, growing on shrubs as tall as houses.

They rode with their friends out through the forest.

Then the tree house came into view. 

Sonja, Ezra and Terence would never forget that moment.

It changed them forever.

The treehouse had a big porch around it.

They walked up the wooden stairs that wound around the massive tree trunk.

Overhead the Douglas Fir tree canopy sheltered the tree house from rain and the trees around it blocked the wind.

The wooden bridge led to other treehouse rooms.

Sonya walked from one to the next, looking down at the forest floor.

“When it rains, the ground floods, but we sit outside on the porch, under the fir boughs, and drink our morning coffee,” said Ezra’s friend.

Comfy beds were ready, with soft blankets, and a meal was cooked on the forest floor over a rock rimmed campfire.

Down south in San Francisco, Ellen received the new batch of photos of the treehouse, lakes, rivers, dunes and beaches. She took them to the newspaper and received another large check.

Ellen sent it to Ezra. Then Ezra went into the little village on the river, and came back to the treehouse. He was the new owner of a parcel of land nearby.

He sent the news down to Ellen. He did not actually say he was going to build a treehouse on the new land. But she knew what to expect.

Ellen remembered when she first met Ezra. They had dreams then. and they loved to be playful and lighthearted.

Somehow through the years of work, they had lost their sense of creativity and whimsy.

She sent a letter north.

“We’re coming up there. I bought the tickets already. See you soon.”

She laughed when she sent the letter. Imagine how surprised Ezra would be. 

On the ship traveling up the coast, Ellen and her children kept looking at the photos of the treehouse.

Ezra, Sonya and Terence met Ellen and the rest of their family at the wharf when their ship docked.

They all rode in their friend’s wagon out to the treehouse and then to Ezra’s new property.

Ellen was wide eyed. Ezra watched her closely. She was a changed woman.

“We’re never leaving. We are spending the rest of our lives here.”

The words were spoken over and over by everyone. "We love it here."

“Take some more pictures,” said Ellen.

"The newspaper requested them. This is earning a good income. The assistants can run the San Francisco studio. We’ll stay here and take a ship down south once in a while to check on things.”

Photos of their family, in the new treehouse they built, were printed by the San Francisco newspapers.

Some people rolled their eyes. But others envied the joyful family climbing the steps to their light-filled treehouse.

Changes continued to happen.

Ezra explored new ways to take photos, Sonya invented artistic designs, Terence wrote fiction stories that the newspapers and magazines published.

Then Ellen began to plan whimsical parties and events. Next, Sonya saw her brothers building interesting furniture from branches, willow reeds, and driftwood.

One day they all got together, and began carving huge statues of animals and marine life, in a fantastical style. The statues were then transported in the wagon to the village and sold. The village purchased them to use for the town square's outdoor art pieces.

Several of the family members became painters, creating huge murals of whales, clipper ships, and marine life for the walls of the tiny nearby village.

The family became known for their nontraditional ways and clothing. Their happy faces, gestures, and style of moving spread joy.

Their talents were unleashed. Others were inspired too.

The family’s happy laughter echoed through the forest, and blended with the breezes and the sounds of bird calls and songs.