Last week we attended the Historic Brunswick Neighborhood Planning Assembly meeting. We were invited to join the group a few months ago while sipping margaritas outside of Tipsy McSways. I was lamenting (apparently loud enough to be overheard because….margarita) “Where can we find THESE?!?!” while pointing to a photo of floor to ceiling bookshelves on my phone. While my husband was unsure, a young man passing by our table asked what I was looking for and then promptly networked with a few friends to come up with the name and phone number of a carpenter who could possible help.

That is what I love about this town.

There is always someone who knows someone who knows someone and everyone is always sincerely willing to help.

In the course of our conversation with this helpful young man (I do know his name but am not sure he would want it used) he asked where our new house was. I described the location using landmarks while my husband gave the cross streets. This man knew EXACTLY which house was ours. “You are in the yellowish house on the corner. The one with THE tree.”

And THAT is the other thing I love about this place.

This historic district.

This is an area filled with beautiful old houses.

Some are in need of repair.

Some are in need of a coat of paint.

Some have been lovingly and meticulously maintained.

ALL have a story.

ALL have a history.

ALL have something special about them.

ALL have a defining characteristic (ours are the amazing trees.)

ALL are more well known than the people who live or have lived in them.

THAT is something that was important to me when we made this move. After years and years and years of living in suburbia and planned communities, I REALLY wanted to live someplace unique and organic. Someplace where the houses were not cookie cutter, one after another after another all in a row.

I wanted someplace where every house had a story and where people loved these houses and embraced these histories.

We have been to a few meetings but in this one, we were asked to raise our hands if we had relocated to the area. Almost every hand in the room went up.

Almost everyone at the meeting had chosen to move from where they were to here. There were quite a few older people who had apparently been in the area long enough to consider it “home” but the rest of us were still somewhat “new.”

The rest of us followed a beacon of some kind and made our way here.

Some have young families they want to raise here. Some (like us) are empty nesters looking for a change. Some (also like me) were feeling lost in the big, big, modern world and were looking for a more “real” place. A place that existed before us, and one that will remain after we are gone. Someplace solid. A touchstone to both the fleetingness of time and an opportunity for immortality, if only as a footnote in the history and lineage of a big old house.

We made our way here, to this area filled with old houses and even older stories, knowing there is little we can change. The historic area encourages upkeep and historically accurate improvements, but you can not just buy a house here with the idea of knocking it down and putting something modern up in it’s place.

At the meeting, which is aimed at preserving and protecting the historic area, the people were secondary.

Every single person who stood up with an agenda item or something to say, introduced themselves by way of their homes. “I am so and so. I live in the big blue house on the corner of such and such street. The one that was owned by —- and ——. The one with the amazing —–(lattice work, stained glass windows, Juliette balcony, rose garden, wrap around porch….) You know the one.”

Every person seemed to recognize that the past exists in the present, exists in the future.

These are people whose pride does not demand the head of the past on a silver plate.

They do not seek to erase what has come before them but rather a harmony where the present protects the past and looks hopefully towards a future where all three can be in this moment together.

https://tipsymcsways.com/