Elizabethtown

He told me where he came from. “That’s a pretty name for a town,” I said. “Maybe I’ll visit you there someday.”

Elizabethtown.

It’s been 18 years since I said those words to the man I’d marry. 18 years since I moved to his hometown and fell in love with all of it. Him, his son, our sons-to-be, his town. My town, now.

Around each bend, he tells me his story. The pond he skated on in front of the college, the 5-and-Dime his sister worked at where you could roll a marble down the slanted floor from the back of the store to the front. The church where his mother sang every Sunday. The halls of Pennsylvania’s capitol building where his dad worked, footsteps he’d later walk in. The bedroom and BB guns he shared with his brothers. Their southern magnolia tree that lived, somehow.

Around each bend, we wrote our story. The vineyard where we danced the first night of many. The road to the highway to the hospital to the baby (times three). The swinging door of a house that never stayed quiet or empty. The trees that were planted from seeds and grew to carry boys on branches, held them in hammocks and on tire swings and tree houses. The snow covered hill filled with sled-trains on starry nights. Summer nights lit with fireworks and fireflies. Sports fields, school halls, piano lessons, starring roles, dinners by candlelight, stitches and muddy shoes. A lifetime. Every memory they’ve ever had of home.

What we cherish most as we gather up our things in boxes and bins is what cannot take along – the friends that helped write our story. A neighborhood filled with adventurers, names carved with sticks in sidewalks, paths traveled in the woods, circles made around bonfires and game consoles, lawns filled with the clutter of every sport ever invented. Every day of our lives intertwined with the most wonderful people – those who would carry us through any emergency – from lending coffee/milk/butter/wine to handling the world when we had to race to the hospital.

For years I’ve automatically written down the same “in case of emergency” name on every form. A neighbor who became a best friend, my “in case of emergency” friend, my no-matter-what friend. And now there are 3 days left and the time for emergencies on Old English Lane is winding down. But for one last crisis: how do you say goodbye to a whole life?

What words soothe the souls of children who long for everything to stay the same? Can they see the gift in that longing, the wonder of loving a life so much and being so enriched by it that your heart aches to let it go?

We break off pieces of our memories and tuck them away like treasures in our hearts, talismans of our beautiful life. These charms carry magic – time machines in ziplock bags. As the days count down, my boys play the piano and the notes weave the background music of a story with a complicated plot, both mournful and hopeful, a little bit holy, woven with nostalgia and a curiosity for what’s around the bend.

Around this next bend, we see a new story unfolding. The road to the highway to a new driveway. And there will be a swinging door of a house that will never stay quiet or empty. A door that will open widest of all to those friends visiting from a small town with a pretty name.

Elizabethtown.

Next stop: Chapel Hill/Pittsboro, North Carolina