Originally published in The Greenwich Sentinel

It's nearing the end of Thanksgiving weekend and I am anticipating the exodus of our children back to their lives. This morning I have returned to our breakfast room to write; it’s early and peaceful and I am the only one awake. It’s been a while since I have written here, and I realize immediately that I have missed this spot and the view of the water. In the distance, there is a scull with four rowers making their way forward as the rising sun reflects on the Sound. A little closer to the house, in our backyard, sits a big rusty anchor secured by its weight to the ground; it functioned as a jungle gym for the kids while they were growing up. A less weighted tree that stood beside it came down in the tornado a few weeks ago and now the anchor stands alone. It’s hard to miss.

A few months ago, I moved my computer and my work and files and papers and a fancy detachable Zoom light to our daughter’s room. We were refinishing the wood floors in the kitchen and I needed to evacuate for the week. Since our daughter left to attend boarding school in September, her sprawling white desk has been empty, so that seemed like a logical place to relocate. I settled into it quickly, spreading out, with a plan that I would stay for a while and I did. I liked the privacy her room gave me, which the kitchen lacked. It was quiet; I could close the door to the world. And there was something comforting about working in her room, submerged in her scent and the things she left behind.

And that was my work lair until she arrived home from school on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I relinquished her room and moved into one of our sons’ rooms where there was another unused desk, but he returned home too, so I moved again, took out my laptop, and looked for a quiet place to work. And maybe I should have felt free, unencumbered, and not restrained by one particular workplace, but I felt as if I was living out of a suitcase, displaced and a little lost.

Sometimes our dogs get a little lost too. They are familiar to most of our neighbors (and the surrounding neighborhood). Maui is an eight-year-old Golden Retriever who last year suffered a stroke that left him partially lame in one leg. He has a big head and good shoulders, enviable traits for his breed, and a scruffy coat from hours logged in the Long Island Sound. Sailor, also a Golden, is smaller, still a puppy at almost two, not smart, but sweet. They go on daily walks throughout our neighborhood and they stop along the way to greet the other dogs who are out doing the same. They are known for these walks, but mostly they are known for their unleashed adventures.

“Hi. I live in Old Greenwich; I think your dogs may be here?” I got a call one morning after the two had been out all night. Grateful and relieved, I also felt quietly in awe of Sailor who managed to stay with Maui as the older dog usually tries to shake his younger sidekick (and often does). And from a neighbor who feeds them biscuits: “Maui and Sailor are here visiting Gus.“ Gus is a Golden Retriever too, and it seems obvious that our wayward boys would wind up there at the end of a journey for social stimulation and treats.

We must be the Canine Fence company’s best customer. At this point, our fence and the correlating collars are set at the highest level. The strength has increased from a gentle nudge to an electric shock; it pains me to think about it but it’s necessary. It’s been weeks since they have escaped, thank God. They are moored, stuck in what many dogs would consider a pretty great deal. But it is clear that, unlike me, they would rather be drifting aimlessly, unanchored through the streets of our neighborhood released from the tethers of an invisible boundary.

The absence of normal rituals and routines in 2020 has been physically and emotionally uprooting. I feel secure in a regular schedule; it centers me, but my husband finds that same security through occasional trips away (surgical strikes he calls them), though travel is challenging right now. Graduations, birthdays, and even Thanksgiving looked different this year. Annual gatherings and retreats that we have come to rely on have been mostly canceled. And in looking ahead to a season that is typically social and decorated in bright lights and Santa suits, I am wondering if this December will be largely spent on the family room couch catching up on the final season of The Crown. And without these usual outings, to release and connect, I feel a sense of disengagement that I imagine our two dogs experience bound to the confines of our backyard.

A kayaker is gracefully gliding by, and likewise, I picture our children gliding out the front door later today, and then back again in a few weeks, lugging their laundry bags behind them. My computer is aching for a permanent home, a secure dwelling where I can unpack and remain. My husband hunts for a safe corner of the globe where he can travel without the need for multiple COVID tests and two weeks stuck in quarantine. And we look to congregate outside in the cold winter air around firepits in small groups to make up for the loss of larger celebrations. I’m sure too that our dogs are planning an illustrious escape and dreaming of biscuits with friends.

And I consider the vessel once attached to the old rusty anchor that now lives in the backyard with Maui and Sailor. The Sugarboat, built in the early 1900s, was used to carry sugar and other raw materials to Boston, though some speculate that the sugar was actually used to supply the bootleggers in Byram during Prohibition. Its final voyage ended in a tragic explosion right off of Great Captains Island, and today, all that remains is the anchor, a device that provides a connection between a boat and the water’s floor to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. It’s been a year of high winds and strong currents, but we are reminded by that old relic from bygone days to look to those things in our lives that keep us anchored and grounded until the worst of it passes us by.