Outliving the Suburbs, but Not Our Home

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?

Is it Still Thanksgiving if…

I have been having Thanksgiving in roughly the same place with just about the same people my entire life.  It is these family traditions and rituals that make life rewarding, fills our heads and hearts with memories.  The sights, sounds, smells and feel of these family events are comfort food.  They have morphed over time.  People have come and gone:  Divorce, death, moves out of state, have transformed these holidays.  The location has scattered from Southfield to the Silverdome, Bethesda, New York, the Poconos. But the basic set up is always the same.  Certain essentials persist.

Until this year. 

Imagine a Thursday in late November with no Macy’s Day Parade, no old-timers football game, no last minute drive to the store, no Black Friday sales.  Imagine the Wednesday before without the office talk of where you are going, the incessant traffic and weather reports.  Imagine no AAA announcements about how many more/less people will be on the road this year versus last.  

Instead an officemate asked me:  "Is it always on Thursday?"

So instead of lacing up the tattered cleats for old guy football, I donned khakis and loafers for an American Thanksgiving Day Service at St Paul’s Cathedral.  Since the Detroit Lion game didn’t start until dinnertime there was no need to be home and eat lunch on the couch.  So we ate out and bumped into a mild UK celebrity who was worldly enough to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving.

My mid-afternoon ritual of running to the store was relatively unchanged except that finding a Whole Foods in London via the tube was a lesson in orienteering.  I needed to buy ten 500 g servings of stuffing since the British chef who was cooking our Traditional Thanksgiving fare refused to make stuffing without pork.

Dinner wasn’t in Manhattan, but Notting Hill.  It wasn’t in a living room, but a pub.  We weren’t surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins, but by friends. 

Instead of lamenting another Lion Thanksgiving Day collapse at dinner, this year’s point of contention was trying to watch the game on our laptops through the restaurant’s spotty WiFi connection.

And instead of nursing my football injuries on Saturday and watching Michigan/Ohio State, we were on a train headed 2 hours North for the Manchester United v Newcastle football match.

And so back home, this very American tradition lived on with its overdose of football, family and faux pageantry, but without us. And although we love it, we didn’t miss it.  In part because it didn’t feel anything like Thanksgiving here.  In London they call it Thursday. 

And then it hits us.  A delayed reaction perhaps.  Now that we see the pictures and hear stories we realize it really was the fourth Thursday in November, and the parades occurred and the games happened and the traditions carried on. 

But we had something else.  We created new memories and a special day, indeed, but was it still Thanksgiving?  I’m not sure you can have Thanksgiving without being in America.  This was a very special holiday in London.