As we were driving down Summerwood Road tonight, the thick thread of asphalt that leads to our home, I spoke out loud, “I just love our neighborhood.”
Dave agreed.
“We’ve certainly driven this road a lot in our lives,” he said.
It’s been half my adult life, really, that I have driven this road pretty much daily. And for almost my whole adult life I have run my various chariots up and down Somerset Road, the entrance to our neighborhood, that connects to Summerwood.
We moved here when I was 24 years old. Since then we have owned three homes in this same neighborhood. It really is home. These streets are lined with people we cherish; folks who nurtured our children from the time they were small. Women who brought meals after my babies were born, and when my body quit moving with paralysis from Guillain Barre Syndrome. Men who came together to chop up wind-felled trees, or plowed the neighbor’s driveway before they left for work. Kids who played ball, and visited the Pop Shop in our garage, and acted out neighborhood Nativities. Those who wove in and out of our home in the company of our own kids are now grown and flown. Still, occasionally, they use their homing devices and find these roads at Thanksgiving or Christmas or on Sunday evenings when Gramma is cooking family dinner. They’ll bring their own children back for the annual neighborhood 4thof July parade, gathering at the park for barbeque and potluck. And if we are really lucky, they make their way down our driveway and plant themselves once again on our couch for an hour or two.
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| Trick or Treating on Summerwood Road |
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| The neighborhood 4th of July parade |
All four of our kids learned to drive on Summerwood Road, turning in to the church parking lot for specific training exercises like three-point turns, parking, and to practice slippery stops on snow covered asphalt. They practiced pumping their brakes in their second-hand first cars, small Japanese dependable’s purchased without all the bells and whistles. When our teenagers were in the driver’s seats, both hands on the wheel at 10 and 2 o’clock, I used to make them do the Alex Denham test. Alex was the youngest of the Denham kids. They lived up the street from us, on Summerwood Road. Teenagers have a tendency to drive too fast down that road. So right when we came to Denham’s house, I would yell “ALEX CHECK!” The kids would slam on the brakes, pretending a ball had rolled out of Denham’s driveway and Alex was chasing after it. We never ever saw that actually happen, but the imagining of it was useful.
When we were looking for houses, back in 1982, we fell in love with this neighborhood because it had a sweetly serpentine road that curved up hill, lined with trees. Somerset Road. It reminded us of our Pennsylvania home.
It was divinely guided that we found this little sacred spot. The neighborhood was sparsely built back then. We watched two-thirds of the current homes go up, through the years. Summerwood Road didn’t even exist. There was just that unpaved path up to the Evans house, surrounded by their peach orchard. And old Sister Philips’ tiny house tucked into those tall evergreens. The humongous rock on the corner, known by locals as “lunch rock” because that’s where they stopped to eat their lunches after a hot day of harvest or play, remains there, even though the Philips place was torn down. Large semi-manses rose up on deep wooded lots lining Summerwood Road. Our home became one of them, tucked down into the scrub oaks at the end of Emerald Oaks Court. The deep red ivy-covered brick, set calmly against the deep green grass of late-summer, or the crisp white of mid-winter, still thrills me when we drive up. Each Christmas eve, after the gifts were all set under the tree and the kids were asleep, Dave and I quietly drove through the streets of our neighborhood with our headlights off. No one else seemed to stir. The edges of the streets glowed with the flickering flames of luminaries, set out and lit by the people we love. I imagine the Christ child finding his way through these streets, guided by the love between neighbors who are also friends.
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| Home at Christmastime |
I recognize the amazing gift this place is to us, and acknowledge that we are unworthy of such a gift… at least no more worthy than the next person. We work hard, and we try to live pretty frugally, but still, we don’t deserve this... this sweet spot we call home.
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| The winter view from our bathroom window |
Each day, when I step out of the shower and look out over the blanket of scrub oak trees that fill the hollow beside our house, and Kingston Road to the west of us, I exhale a prayer of thanks. In all those years we spent growing up in western PA, we never owned a house, even when Mom became a top selling real estate agent. Maybe that’s the thing that makes me savor this gift. Our home; this remarkable token, this safe haven in the cul-de-sac filled with emerald oaks near the end of Summerwood Road. Wide, safe, Summerwood Road, so familiar I could drive almost blind folded.
This road that bends with grace, that leads to adventure and fast wide highways, has two sides to it. And one of those sides, gratefully, always brings me home.
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| My sisters live one house away from us, on the corner of Emerald Oaks Court and Summerwood Drive. This is the view from their front porch. |
