April 4. This is hard. Harder than I expected. Deconstructing my Santa Cruz house to reconstruct it for today’s market is, essentially, deconstructing the life I lived in it for a decade. Workmen are removing the wall decorations, TV screens, bookcases, and even the blinds that protected my plants from the sun, all taken down and thrown into a pile in the garage. My carefully selected wall colors are being covered in white paint. All white, every room, baseboard, window sill, and trim. New light fixtures, faucets, ceilings (no more cottage cheese finish). The study, where I wrote my last two books, is now just an empty room. The lumpy lawn was taken out yesterday, replaced with fresh sod. Petunias fill the garden I planted with child-friendly and dog-friendly plants, fuzzy, fragrant, and safe to eat. My goldfish swim in frantic circles as gas-fueled clippers and blowers rearrange the formerly calm waters of the pond.
April 7. My realtor suggested I go home after the contracts were signed, but I didn’t listen to her. I wanted to squeeze in all the time I could walking along West Cliff Drive, eating in local restaurants, and reconnecting with places and people who made my life rich and full for so many years. It turns out that West Cliff Drive has washed away in several places, restaurant prices have soared, and at least some of my friends are off on Easter or wildflower adventures. So here I am, watching the workmen take down my quadrophonic speakers, replace light fittings, remove decorative art from the bathroom walls.
April 9. Easter Sunday. My carefully-chosen carpets have been removed from the bedrooms, replaced with vinyl flooring. I fed the fish today and watered the new sod and bedding plants. 
In my head I saw the Fairy Garden that my oldest granddaughter and I created near the fountain. Remembered Easter egg hunts, the laughter and delight of my granddaughters and their parents as they found each egg. Some were real eggs, hard boiled and colored. Others were plastic, with toys or candy inside. Later we shared Easter Egg Bread and read Humbug Rabbit. This year three of my four adult children are with their families in Yosemite. Three six year olds and a teenager, more interested in skiing, hiking and Easter Baskets than egg hunts in the garden with Grandma. But Bean is still attached to the goldfish, each of whom has a name. She’s volunteered to feed the fish until the house changes hands.
April 10. Met with realtor one last time to discuss details of repairs, painting, landscaping, staging. “It will be lovely,” she said. I nodded, a lump in my throat. It really will – I’ve seen pictures of this team’s work. It will be gorgeous. But it will no longer be mine.
April 19. I’m back in Calabasas. My Santa Cruz house goes on the market today.
Change is hard.
But with change comes opportunity.
I don’t know this author, but I love his quote:
Every encounter is an opportunity. If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always got. Life is all about change.
Edwin Mamerto
Opportunity, here I come.
Marlene
Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s. Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic ) Families will be out soon. Her next project is a book about Grandparenting, and in her spare time, she is plotting a cozy mystery.
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Hi there Marlene. Change IS hard but it’s part of the journey. Family grows up – dont I know it. My grandies are all over 20 now but all doing well and happy and healthy. 2 finished Uni and in good jobs, granddaughter notlongbackfrom Oregon, where shespent6 weeks on exchange doing medical research. When people ask what she does I can google her now and there she andthe nformation appears. 2 younger ones still at Uni. Take care Marlene and I probably shouldn’t catch up here, but decided to say hello. Welcome to your new home and ENJOY, and stay healthy and safe.
Anita,
I’m delighted you used this space to catch up! Thanks for the news.
I am happy for you, Marlene, but then also sad that you have to undo all the lovely work put into your Santa Cruz home. I know what that’s like, just had to undo my mountain home last year. Good that you have your family to help with the transition.
Ah, I feel your melancholy, Marlene.Change, the little death. I hope you got loads of pictures of your home (before) and the house (after).
Beautiful…..you are such an astute observer of the simple things and describe them wonderfully. I am finding ageing and next stages difficult. Funny how life doesn’t necessarily work out the way that you thought it might. Love your work.
The in-between-ness of transition can feel so hard! We have a lot of thoughts about it and what it means and how things were or should be and what’s next—and it all settles down eventually, but gosh, it’s a tender time in the middle. Here for you, Marlene.
Oh Marlene, I can’t imagine changing everything you have worked on in the past enjoyed being destroyed. Hopefully you have taken photos. I overdo with decorating, must be our English heritage, mine anyway. I know we will have to make the move eventually. Big decision is do we spend permanent life with the cold winters or the other with hot summers. That is why California was a perfect place to live, not so much anymore.
Please keep in touch with your writings.
Marlene, your home will live on in my memory of fun times we shared there. I see it as it was in my head, where it will stay the same as always. Meanwhile, you are building new memories where you are now. i hope a new family will make their own memories on Grandview Avenue, just you’re doing in Calabasas. Hugs.
So interesting how different our perspectives are Marlene although I empathize with your sense of loss. I still grieve for past people, places and things but I also have always embraced change although, alas, I don’t foresee any big changes in my future. However I do feel content and fortunate for my family and my present situation. And so here is the cliche “this too shall pass” and you are so resourceful I know you will find the opportunity.
I do believe that of you. You embrace change. I don’t like it much. But there you go. It is what it is. Thanks for your positive thoughts.
Oh Marlene, you brought me to tears with your vivid memories and thoughts put into words. I wish you all the best in your new adventures and look forward to hearing all about them!
Thank you, Cheryl. I’m looking forward to new adventures also. But the past goes with us to new places, doesn’t it?
Lovely. Made me sad and happy at the same time.
Thank you, Cynthia. That’s exactly how I feel.