Alongside everything else

Stepping away to step back in

If listening is your thing, you can access an audio version of this essay, read by me, here. ⬆️

They’re waiting on the deck when we finally arrive, an hour later than planned—my two brothers and their wives, waving as though the wait hasn’t mattered at all. Inside, the dinner they’ve prepared is warm and ready. Only eight of us this time, counting a nephew and his girlfriend who arrive two days later. Small, but enough. It’s been more than a year since our last reunion.

When our mother was alive, she envied people with big families, cousins stacked like cordwood at holiday parties, siblings who never drifted far from home. She craved proximity, an abundance of kin, the liveliness of her people spilling into her spaces more often. My brothers and I live in three states now; our grown children are scattered, some across oceans. What remains are the gatherings we deliberately create.

Our long weekend together is unhurried. Apart from a few dog walks and an errand to replace someone’s forgotten underwear, we barely wander past the yard. Our only group outing is for breakfast at a diner up the road: pancakes, grits, country ham biscuits, and cups of mediocre coffee refilled until we wave off the pot.

At a general store nearby, I buy four packs of that ham to freeze; it’s impossible to find at home. The place smells of sugar, and bacon, and dust. Two dozen jars of incense, in scents like Latin Lover and Apple Pie, stand between back scratchers and thumb pianos. Open baskets hold dried beans speckled like wild ponies. I’m reminded of the “help” who made biscuits and stirred grits in the North Carolina bungalow of my father’s mother, and of the awful but earnest bowls of Wheatina served in the New Jersey kitchen of my mother’s mother. She was the one who showed us sassafras—how to peel the bark from a sapling’s root and chew until the taste of wintergreen filled our mouths.

My brother drives us along the Blue Ridge Parkway, pointing out landmarks he remembers from bike rides. We take longer than planned, and the football fans who miss their team’s kick-off make the best of it. Back at the house, the television holds court while I take to chopping vegetables and simmering black beans for the taco dinner I’ve promised to make. My “cooking production,” one brother teases, takes most of the afternoon. His comment, familiar and harmless, settles like a touchstone, proof that we still know how to share space amid our differences.

We come together to be together but also, I think, to rest from the noise—though we never say that out loud. For a few days, at the top of those gentle rolling hills, we step away from most everything, letting our shoulders relax.

Too soon, hugging and hugging again, it’s time to come down. In the women’s bathroom at the first rest stop, mirrors and walls display information and hotline numbers for how to help victims of human trafficking. On the stall doors, more signs, with inch-high letters also rendered in Braille: Protect your valuables. Hang purse on hook.

Further along, as traffic slows, I notice a yellow sign with red letters hammered into the grassy shoulder. Two words—Epstein Files—sharp against the backdrop of fall leaves. Someone has taken the time to make a sign, pound it into the earth, claim a piece of attention, insist we remember. Just a glimpse before cars move on. My husband pokes his thumb in the air, a small gesture of goodwill to a driver from Quebec.

Food assistance is denied while food collection boxes pop up in neighborhood stores and gathering places. Our historical foundations are razed even as New Mexico offers universal free childcare, Virginia elects its first woman governor, and election results echo the voices of American voters.

When it feels like all we have left to hold things together is tape and tears, something more like glue emerges. Shared stories, collaborative meals, clinking glasses, the gift of time together: the weekend is a release.

Everything still exists alongside everything else as those timeworn mountains recede behind me.

At the end of a yoga practice, the instructor speaks about moving through life with ease. What she says is, “You don’t have to try so hard.” What I hear is, “You don’t have to hold onto the hard.”

I needed to hear it my way.

~Elizabeth

And now, I get to turn it over to you. Just as when we share time with those we love, it’s the little conversations that bring the most joy. When you comment 💬 like 💚 or restack ♻️ a post, it’s a way of saying, “Yes, I see you. And I’m here, too.” And honestly? That matters more than you might realize, to me and to this creative endeavor.

So if this essay struck a chord, or nudged you toward a meaningful moment of your own, go ahead—hit those buttons, share a thought, or subscribe. Let’s keep discovering these pockets of pause together, because the spaces between everything else are where the magic truly thrives.