Turning Over

by Phoebe Farber

The house across the street is for sale. From my window, I can see a long line of people waiting for the open house to begin—parents huddled together, holding the hands of little ones straining to run across the lawn. I sit at my dining room table, my hands around a mug of lukewarm tea, feeling at loose ends. The kids are settled elsewhere and with my husband ensconced in his office upstairs, the house is too quiet. For a moment, I am nostalgic for the commotion and chaos of family life. But now all is still. It’s April and things are finally starting to warm up. It was a hard winter, lots of snow and ice, going down my front steps sideways, like my grandmother used to do. Across the street, one little girl has broken free and runs across the lawn to do a cartwheel. She lands on her feet, but then plops down on her knees and presses her face into the grass. She is pulled back into line by her mother, who wears a stylish long coat, black jeans and cowboy boots. Brooklyn hip I’d guess.

The neighborhood is changing. My neighbor to the left moved to Florida to escape the cold. The family two houses away bought a country home upstate and is rarely around. Mrs. Johnson is still there on the corner, the matriarch who bought the house in 1955 and raised three generations there. Her son recently moved in to take care of her. Mr. Garett at the end of the block died last year. Like a slow-moving storm that pushes everything out of its way, the ground is turning over.

In the past year, several young families have moved onto our street. I see kids trudging to the school bus in the early morning or kicking a soccer ball around on the week end. I bought a cup of sugary lemonade last week from the new family down the block. As I stepped out to bring the garbage cans in, the two kids behind their lemonade stand waved me over, jumping up and down, screaming in delight, “Lemonade for sale!”

After I put my dollar into their jar, I held my paper cup and smiled at them. “Who made the lemonade?” I asked.

The little boy was jumping up and down like a maniac, swinging his arms up and clapping his hands at the top. “It’s from a mix!” he yelled.

The girl in her pink overalls cocked her head at me. “Who are you?” She said. I laughed. “Who am I? Just a neighbor. I live over there.” I pointed. She stared at me, expressionless, the way kids can pierce you with their gaze, then turned her attention to her brother, bored by our interaction.

This is the way it’s supposed to happen, I guess. I’ve lived in this New Jersey town, in this house for 25 years. My daughter was 3 when my husband and I moved from the city. The magnolia trees lining the street and the lush gardens were like entering the gates of heaven. After the moving truck drove away, I stood in the kitchen among the boxes and spread my arms out, in awe of the space and stunned by this upheaval in our lives. Our daughter ran up the stairs, peeking into the bedrooms, as if she’d find another family already living there. We all felt like trespassers. If someone asked, I was sheepish about the decision to move to Jersey, an admission of defeat or weakness. “The noise is getting to me,” I might say. “But, I’ll be back. Where’re you gonna see a good movie?” In truth, I was ecstatic about moving to the suburbs. I had grown up in an apartment in the city--suburban life was exotic. Stairs, a basement that belonged just to you, a garage, grass in every direction. I was thrilled.

The line of people are slowly filing into the house. Martha, the owner, will be moving to D.C. to be close to her grandkids. I’ll miss our chats on the sidewalk as we both work on our gardens. Her lemon scones were famous on our street. How did I get to be on the other side? When we first moved in, I was impressed by the number of three generation families still living on the block. This was a neighborhood where people stayed. I remember the shaky feeling of uprooting from everything familiar, even if it meant no longer lugging a stroller up three flights of stairs in our Upper West Side walk up.

My mug of Earl Grey tea is getting cold. The sidewalk has emptied out. From my window I can see the daffodils coming up in my front yard, dotted by hyacinth and crocuses. The first bits of life poking through the cold earth is always a thrill. Soon I will get out there with my spade and bag of soil, though I must remember to kneel instead of bend over, careful of my back.

This house, this block, this neighborhood has been good to us. These rooms have seen our kids through preschool, bake sales, tears over college applications, countless gatherings around our dining room table. It’s just the two of us now. I don’t really yearn for the earlier phase of life—I am exhausted just by the thought—the chaos of meal prep, back packs and permission slips--the tentacles of daily life that reached into every available space, leaving nothing left over. But I am not prepared for the reminder of where that leaves me in the cycle of life—past the middle, moving up the other side, the end in sight. A few families file out of Martha’s house, the realtor hands out a sheet of information, probably about the age of the roof, the boiler, the updated electrical panel. I’m sure one of them will move in. More kids on the street, riding their bikes, hurling balls into the soccer net, the noise of their voices will punctuate the air while the parents chat on the lawns. I used to be one of them. For now, I will smile and wave as I retrieve my garbage cans and remind them that trash pickup is twice a week and bulky waste once a month. But don’t pass me over with your gaze or dismiss me as the old timer. Though I may be, I have knowledge about this block, this street, these trees, this soil, that you can’t imagine.