Fourth of July, Back Where We Belong

This weekend, Andrew and I found ourselves adhering to one of our favorite traditions: spending the Fourth of July at the Littells’ ancestral home in New Hampshire. Andrew left work early Friday afternoon, we loaded up the car, and we were off—missing the NYC holiday traffic but getting stuck in Hartford. Nonetheless, by nightfall we were there, sweeping cobwebs from the doorway and mouse droppings from the countertops, putting together Lucia’s crib. Once she was asleep, Andrew went into town to get us some groceries and a pizza, which we ate in the dining room, nothing but stars and darkness outside the windows. We were lulled to sleep by bullfrogs and crickets, just as this house’s inhabitants have been for almost three hundred years.

Over the next three days, we reveled in the extreme relaxation that only comes from visiting this house. We read, wrote, played outside on a blanket with the baby, took walks along the unpaved road, filled a plastic sled with water for Lucia to use as a swimming pool. Andrew swam in the pond; I, as usual, did not. (Lucia dipped her toes in.) We had lunch at the Harpoon brewery in Windsor, Vermont. On the Fourth, we drove into Plainfield, a tiny town like something out a movie that calls for “a typical American small town.” We’d missed the parade, but locals were still sitting by the road in lawn chairs, chatting with one another; there was a cake auction inside the historical society’s office; and a few old buildings had opened themselves up for tag sales. Local art was being shown inside the town hall, but our attention was elsewhere—the hall is dominated by a stage with scenery designed by Cornish Colony member Maxfield Parrish. As ladies cooed over Lucia (wearing her bonnet, fitting for a day in a town founded in the early 1700s), we soaked in the atmosphere, then had lunch at a cookout sponsored by the local firemen. We could have been in 2010, or we could have been in 1900. Surely we were being whispered about, strangers at the fair.

Being at this house is always like stepping back in time. Every drawer in every bureau contains ghosts of centuries past; portraits of Andrew’s great-great-grandparents are mixed in with snapshots from his babyhood, nestled against blueprints defining the estate’s acres of land. Dead ladybugs are tucked into the seams of the furniture; dead moths, their wings outspread, drift into corners. And at night, when we turned off all the lights and laid outside on a blanket to look at the star-filled sky, there was nothing—no sound save the frogs and a frightening rustling in the woods, no light but the stars. Shooting stars flashed. The milky way trembled. Fireflies glowed in the fields.

And on Monday, loathe to leave and greedy for more hours in this timeless netherworld, we chose to spend the entire day there, right up through Lucia’s bedtime; and after her bath and bottle, we got in the car and started for home, crossing our fingers that she’d sleep the whole way. She did, and we made it back to NYC in record time, surprised, somehow, to realize we are so close—to be able to go back whenever we want to, instead of just once a year. It is thrilling to know that this wonderful place—this peaceful sanctuary—is within reach now. We really are back. We really are lucky. Somehow all the things we’ve planned for have fallen into place.