“Home is where the heart is.” Pliny the Elder Roman scholar, naturalist, and historian.
The blue sky and water welcomed me as I crossed the Chowan River Bridge on Tuesday and my heart whispered, Home.
As a child, my husband spent his summers at a cottage on Chautauqua Lake in New York state’s Southern Tier and we had our honeymoon there. But in 1976, my husband’s parents bought a house near Sesuit Harbor on Cape Cod Bay. For twenty years we crossed the Bourne Bridge to spend vacations with our children at Harbor Beach, playing in the waves and watching the sunset. In Mom’s kitchen there, a plaque read, “Does the sound of the sea end at the shore or in the heart of those who love her.” If I listened with my heart, I could always hear ocean waves no matter how far away I traveled and picture myself walking on the sand.
Edenton speaks to me that same way. It has since the first day I visited, not knowing then which of the 19 counties of my territory would become our home. I drove in from Winton from my office and crossed the river looking at the light sparkle on the water with a growing excitement and a sense of deja vu.
Walking from The Captain’s Quarters b&b, I arrived at the harbor just in time to watch the sunset over the water. It was breathtaking. Standing there, the Sound claimed me. I called my husband only to learn Doug had just spoken to the Pastor Nominating Committee from Edenton’s First Presbyterian Church and had an interview scheduled. Little did I know then that I would fall in love with the land as much as the water.
Three months after that first visit, the crape myrtles lining West Queen Street welcomed us to our new home which I would come to think of as “The Shore.” As we walked to town, down to the harbor, and home again we saw porches and gardens, large and small, filled with lovely flowers unknown to me.
Our backyard had a porch and lots of trees, but mostly fence and grass. Making Edenton our home meant taking the Extension Master Gardener’s class and creating a garden of my own. I learned to love taking out grass, creating and edging new beds, even composting. There was no problem that didn’t come into better perspective after I “dug in the dirt.”
Slowly, I learned about plants I had heard of, but never seen in the north, like jessamine and honeysuckle. Part of our welcome to Edenton came in gifts of plants shared as touches of grace. Hostas, caladiums, crocosmia, hydrangeas, coneflower, bee balm, canna, iris, curly willow trees, and tulip poplar were graciously given and gladly received. Across our fence, Esther, an elderly Moseley neighbor, shared gardening insights and bulbs. Southern hospitality bloomed everywhere.
Ever since our son moved to Raleigh to become a Tarheel, I have loved North Carolina. Moving to Edenton made me a talking billboard! I would proclaim its charm, boasting about the historic houses, the Trolley tours, the Founding Fathers who lived here, speaking with pride of Penelope Barker organizing the first political protest by women at Edenton’s Tea Party. I would promote the Candlelight Tour and the Pilgrimage, inviting everyone who’d listen to North Carolina’s prettiest small town.
Especially at Christmas, as we walked past the Christmas wreaths on the vintage lampposts on our way to dinner in town, I felt a sense of peace and of place. It was a wonderful life and Edenton was home. My home.
I have lived many places, but not every place feels like home. If home is where the heart is, it is like falling in love, if you do, you feel as if you’ve always known that person, that place, as if you were meant to be together.
Doug taught me that you tune a guitar by plucking a note and adjusting the peg of the string to be tuned until it vibrates to that note. This resonance with the tone of this place, feeling in sync with the rhythms of Chowan county and its people, vibrates my heart-strings. And now, whether I am at Colonial Park or at our new house near Raleigh, a part of my heart beats to the gentle ripples of the Sound, and I can envision the Lighthouse against the setting sun and picture myself walking Edenton’s streets.
So, as the time approached when Doug would retire and we’d move closer to family in Raleigh, nostalgia became a constant, and I feverishly worked to “complete” my garden. I wanted every bit of the long fence to have plantings. I wanted to leave something behind as a remembrance that if only in a bit of altered landscape, something was different in Edenton, even if just slightly, because I had lived there.
We moved in December. As spring came, I began my garden here in Willow Spring. Here, at the house I call Holly Cottage, I again found few plants and an empty fence. It made me homesick. So, Tuesday, I came home, over the bridge, back to Edenton and my garden. Most things there had to remain, a sort of living legacy. 
But I wanted to enrich my new home, my new garden, with bits and pieces of Edenton. So, I dug up seedlings and divided bulbs. I uprooted a sampling of irises. and will relocate a lilac bush barely hanging on in the too shaded garden to a sunnier spot at my new house.
From our screened porch in Willow Spring, we now watch new birds come to new feeders. I really like our house…and feel stirrings of love growing.
Yet, Edenton is forever in my heart, and as I look out at plants that began there and now will bloom here, I hope I will hear a resonance, that the song of the Sound and the notes of a charming town will carry and help me once again find home.
joanneeddy's blog 
Lovely post, Joanne. I’m so glad you brought part of your garden with you. That connection to the land “grounds” us and feels great. Happy gardening. 🙂
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Thanks, Diana! You are so right! (Luckily I got them all in the ground in time for a cooler wet few days which may help them “settle in” here at their new home.)
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I have always taken a few plants with me when I have moved house but I always leave some for others to enjoy. Happy gardening.
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Yes, I only took some of everything except the lilac bush which I had tried in several places but never found a good spot. And I left behind a weeping dwarf maple 🍁 and a stunning Japanese magnolia which had already reached 12 feet, azaleas 🌺 roses 🌹 and hydrangeas. But I am already planting here and planning more! Happy gardening to you, too!
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A big congratulation from me on your new home. Did I understand it right that it is close to the Cape Cod where you spent all the holidays when your children were small? I love the historic places too. I have only been to Boston and walk the “Freedom Trail” with great interest
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Hi Maria, probably a little confusing. Cape Cod is on the Atlantic Ocean off Massachusetts where we went to my in/law’s house when the kids were little. 10 years ago we moved from Syracuse in Upstate New York to Edenton, North Carolina, which was on the Albemarle Sound just in land from the Outer Banks (on the Atlantic) so some similarities to Cape Cod. Edenton was the first capital of North Carolina and was created in 1667 so very historic and quaint but little, unlike Boston.
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Oops. I hit return accidentally. Our new home is near our children in the suburban
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So your new house is also in North Carolina? Thank you for explaining to me. My twin brother has traveled all these places but I have “only” been to Washington and Boston at one trip and to New York at another trip. So much more to see if I get to it
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Yes. Our house is in Willow Spring near Raleigh about twenty minutes from our son and daughter (instead of the 2.5 hours from Edenton) nice to be closer to them. The USA is so large it is hard to understand spacially. Each state is very unique and different, as are cities. Syracuse is very different from Ned York City though in the same state. There really is lots to see – even for Americans.
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You make me feel like wanting to see. We should have been on a tour but had to postpone it. My husband’s hip needs replacement as soon as possible
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I’ve seen that you enjoy biking and touring so I your husband is better soon and you can travel again.
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So true we love to see nature and museums and just everything interesting
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Raleigh area. Raleigh is the current capital of North Carolina
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Beautifully written post about a beautiful state, Joanne – one in which I may well choose to settle myself. I am currently researching in hopes of a relocation – tho’ I doubt I will become fascinated with gardening as it seems you most certainly have. I greatly appreciate the efforts of others, but digging in the dirt, as yet, has never captured my fancy.
I hope your Holly Cottage in Willow Springs quickly begins to vibrate to the note of HOME.
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
“It takes a village to transform a world!”
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Thanks, Madelyn. Did you have an area in mind?
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Not yet – Raleigh/Durham appeals on many levels but it is pricey. Ditto Asheville. But there’s a lot to love about the state.
This is intended to be my last move, so I am taking a lot of factors into consideration and still researching. Tennessee was seriously in the running since many of my college friends have settled in Knoxville (or will, upon retirement) – until I learned of the health/hospital crises (likely to worsen if Orange & cohorts have their way).
I have been following a blog that has me looking at upstate NY again too (Rochester). If Canada would have me, I’d expatriate in a heartbeat to escape the ravages of Corporate Capitalism and far right ideals as I age.
If I were to win the lottery (which I play only in my mind – lol) and money were NO object, I’m back to Manhattan in a flash!
Really, I have NO idea, just a growing list of things to check out as I research.
xx,
mgh
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I am writing from Manhattan and love visiting but really expensive. If you like upstate New York check out Buffalo. I have cousins there. Really revitalizing and pretty inexpensive. There are many areas on outskirts of Raleigh that are great. We got our 1500 sq ft house with 1/2 acre of land for 215 k. I do know a great realtor.
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Thanks for the info, Joanne. I lived in Manhattan for 20 years and miss it like a lover. I resonate to big city living most of all, so acreage wouldn’t be an attraction, especially since I am not partnered and would have to manage the upkeep alone. I don’t want to HAVE to drive to get around, either.
I think Buffalo is too deeply snowy for too long for me, but I’m not really ruling out a lot at this point except, since I am extremely heat defensive, to avoid prolonged heat and humidity as much as possible without landing myself in frozen tundra (lol),
I’d be miserably lonely if my neighbors were primarily arch conservatives, since my leanings are clearly progressive – and I’d love to be close to colleges and/or universities and/or artist enclaves – and will probably need to consider proximity to excellent hospitals and doctors.
In the end, I will have to do a cost/benefit analysis, with COST at the top of the list, no doubt. I’ve given away more than I’ve sold for most of my career – helper’s disease. 🙂
xx,
mgh
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I’ve visited NC a couple of times and found it to be a lovely state. My childhood best friend lives near Winston-Salem. I’m not a gardener but wish I was since there were plants from my parents’ home I wish I had separated and planted as part of my heritage. My mother was a wonderful gardener, both flowers and vegetables. I hope you enjoy your new home. It is wonderful to live near children. Found your blog on #senior salon.
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We certainly do love NC…and Bernadette and Senior Salon. Thanks for your comment! Jo
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It’s lovely that you have such fond memories of your previous home and can take some of them with you in your plants. I hope your new home brings you as much happiness 😊
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Thanks, Clive!
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