There is the peace of the grave. There is the peace of God that surpasseth all understanding. And there is the peace that falls on a household when first grade begins and the last and youngest of your children goes off to full-day school. When it is the first time in 17 years that your house has been empty, as is the case with me, each day contains elements of those other types of peace. Namely, it all feels a little bit deathly — and a little bit heavenly.
The tranquility is strange and sad and wonderful. When you tidy a room, it actually stays tidied rather than, through swift mysterious processes that take place out of your sight, getting messed up again. When you bake a cake, no one makes off with the spatula and accidentally leaves it on a chair to surprise the next person who sits down. A person can move speedily and efficiently around the house, wreaking order and cleanliness, and if a person is not hungry at lunchtime there is no exterior requirement to stop and make a sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk. Undreamed-of efficiency holds sway when it comes to paying bills, writing articles and doing volunteer work; it becomes possible to concentrate on a task for more than a few fugitive minutes at a time.
And oh, the silence!
Oh, the silence.
No interruptions. No distractions. No nagging or wheedling or complaints. Also no cheerful companionship at the supermarket, no surprise cuddles while folding laundry, no requests, such as “Can we go to the park?” or “Will you read me this book?” or “Will you play with me?”
In place of those sounds — those dear, dear sounds — among other things you begin to notice the everlasting supply of electronic beeps. I do not think I realized how many objects in modern life make plaintive noises until everyone went off to school two weeks ago. In the absence of the chatter of children, one begins to notice the imperious neediness of one’s appliances.
It’s not enough that the microwave melts butter, for instance. No, it must announce with shrill beeps that the butter is melted: YEEP-YEEP-YEEP! The washing machine yips as it changes from rinsing to spinning and then to being done. The toaster oven cries BING! The bread maker insists on telling when I am free to add nuts or oats or whatnot with an EEEN-EEEN-EEEN, and then EEEENs me again when my dough has finished rising. The dishwasher gets so excited when it’s finished a cycle that it hits DEFCON 3. Unlike the noises of a family, these sounds are factory-installed, utterly indifferent and wholly impersonal.
Fortunately, as each labor-saving device completes its mission, the shrieks and beeps die away. Then the air is calm and still. This early in the fall, the tranquility still feels odd. It must surely be temporary. Can that achingly protracted phase of family life, the long sprawling years of babies and toddlers and preschoolers, really be over? It can. It is. And it’s strange and sad and wonderful, all at once.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
