At dusk we
walk the dogs.
As the house
empties the evenings are the biggest change.
There was a
time when I would rush home from work to help with
the bath, pajamas, teeth-brushing, story-telling and to bed before the adults returned
to the kitchen for a dinner of our own.
The routine
changed as they learned to feed themselves and made sure the
parents stayed away as they covered up on their way to the shower.
And now we
come home and the lone remaining child is already upstairs doing things where we have no
logical role. Maybe we can look over a
paper or answer high impact questions like: “I'm out of toothpaste.” “Why
is it so hot in this house?” “Is the Wifi broken?”
But other
than that we are left to our own devices.
But what are those devices?
I’ve asked several
friends whose nests have emptied what they do at night?
Seven o’clock
is the new witching hour.
Our only remaining
live-in child gets home from swim practice at six thirty, the elaborate meal of
a protein, starch and veggie is eaten standing up at the kitchen counter much
to my wife’s dismay. But the child hurries back up to her room for homework, college applications and social connection
via social media.
So now
what? It’s seven o’clock.
I used to
sneak into my den for a few minutes of work or reading or writing when they
were young. Now I have the time alone,
but I don’t want it.
So we walk
the dogs down the street, up to the elementary school where they can go off
leash to run.
At the school there are parents pushing strollers through the
adjacent playground, maybe someone is on a swing, another is catching a child
swirling down a slide.
On the
blacktop there is a father chasing a bicycle as a little boy with helmet,
knee pads and elbow pads wobbles back and forth before straightening his front
tire and heading for the safety of the grassy baseball field.
Onto the
soccer field we go, a practice of middle schoolers in full swing, a few parents
linger along the sidelines. When the
dogs get too close and the snares from the sideline parents too
intense, we call for them to come.
These are
all scenes we have run through. We have
been on that playground, pushed a bike through that parking lot, anxiously
cheered a child from those sidelines.
But now it’s
all sidelines.
It’s getting
dark and practices need to end, parents trying to get home, children stretching for one more chance at daylight.
A father in
the parking lot implores his child to come to the car, as the little boy tries,
in vain, to make one final shot on the basketball court before running to the
open door.
“We don’t
belong here anymore,” I say, as the dogs go into a trot on the way back home. “The suburbs served their purpose, now it’s
time for someone else to be on this street with their kids, their basketball,
their dogs and leashes.”
These nightly
walks are a trip through our lives, a splendid one at that. Our kids played on those fields, but
now they are gone and we should be too.
“We’re not
selling the house,” she says.
“Why not?”
“You can’t
sell their childhood while they are in college, they need a place to come home
to.”
“We’re not
going to be homeless, we’ll move someplace else. The suburbs are built for families. We have nothing to rush home to in the
evening, our job here is done.”
“The kids
need to know they can come home. To
their home, not some house where they stay in a guest bedroom.”
We went from
living in a dorm, to an apartment in a city, to the suburbs. But somewhere after suburbs, but before
Florida or a “community”, where do you go?
A friend of
mine, a city dweller, called the suburbs soul-less. I disagree.
The soul of the suburbs are the family’s that live there. But when the kids leave the house, a
light goes out.
Had we outlived
our suburban purpose?
Thanksgiving
comes and everybody rushes home. The
kids love their beds and their bedrooms, their dogs and their place on the
couch with unrivaled affection. Rooms we
haven’t entered in months are now filled with people and friends, empty bottles
and cups, dented cushions and noise that is music to any parent’s ears.
I get
it.
The children
are fiercely defensive of their homestead, their bedrooms, their backyard,
their pets. They want it all
hermetically sealed in a place they remember when they were small(er). We are not meant to live in museums. They are places to visit, pause and remember.
But what are
we to do between visits?
