I am sitting here on a screen porch on a breezy, cloudy, 70-degree day, in the center of this sand-swept New England town. Strangely, all is quiet except for the chiming of church bells, the murmur of voices in one of the nearby houses (screened windows and doors are always open here this time of year), or conversation from cyclists on the street, their voices rising and fading as they pass. Dishes clink from the small inn next door. Cars and mopeds do venture up this narrow, one-way lane leading out of town, but today, at this moment, the loudest sound is the wind rustling the leaves. And, now, a propeller plane in the distance pricks the silence, and is gone.

This is rare, this moment comprised of sounds that have nothing to do with my voice, with the yelling and calling and cajoling of my three children (and yes, sometimes my husband). How can a house in this bustling summer town be so close to that town, actually in that town, and still be so quiet? I am aware of the neighbor behind our rental house whose back patio I look down on from my kitchen window. There is a large blue and white surfboard propped up against the gray-shingled house, and I see her at her own kitchen sink, wisps of aging yellow-white hair visible, as I do dishes at mine. Is she a renter too? I’ve decided that she is the mother and there is what looks like at least one teenage girl, a long-haired brunette in cut-off jean shorts, and a man–but I can’t figure out if he is the husband or the son; lean and clad in a polo shirt and striped bermuda shorts, he looks too young for one and too old for the other. And who is the surfer? Who wears the wetsuit hanging from the tree out back, drying in the wind?

Who are all these people crammed together in this quiet and bustling little town?

We are the loud ones, I notice. If you don’t know who the loud one is, to paraphrase a saying, it’s probably you. Yes, I had my daughter walk out with me to the street and listen while I instructed her siblings to talk loudly from inside the house. How much could we hear? Not as much as I thought. But then, they weren’t yelling, because of course I asked them to, and that was the end of that.

These quiet, peaceful moments … it’s hard to really inhabit them and fully appreciate them because of the anticipation of their ending. Any second now, the twins could burst through the door, having walked back from their friend’s house where they’ve spent the night. My son could clamber down the creaky back stairs from his bedroom, where he has been reading all morning, and ask for breakfast at lunchtime.  Even if I tell him to get his own, there will be conversation, help needed, and the moment (in my mind) will mostly likely be gone. But for now…

Yes, this is a rare sweet spot–this place on the back porch full of intermittent sounds that mark the silence between. I contrast this moment with the same one two days ago, when I was walking into the charming and distraction-filled town with my twin daughters, age 10, and my son, 12. He was lagging behind, having brought his book so he could sit on a bench while I took the girls inside a clothing shop. The girls, on the other hand, were walking so close to me, I was consciously sticking out and slightly waving my hands to keep them from walking on my flip-flopped feet. They are experts at “the box-out”–one on either side of me, slowly nudging closer to each other until I, exasperated, come to a dead stop, quickly scoot around them and run forward a few steps to snatch three seconds of free walking until they run and catch up with me, and the cycle starts again. I remember when they were younger that they often clung to me so successfully as we walked down the street that I felt like I was “wearing” my children. For someone a bit claustrophobic, that’s not a good thing.

I guess things haven’t really changed that much. Yet.

I see the shift happening in the soon-to-be 13-year-old. He is sleeping later, more reluctant to do “kid” things like go the pool for no reason or take a long bike ride. Yet he is the least high-maintenance of the three in some ways, not complaining as I drag him into town with the girls, as long as he has a “Ranger’s Apprentice” volume to read. He stayed home last night when my husband I went to dinner, perfectly content to watch sports on TV, not afraid to be alone. We gave him money to go grab a slice of pizza.

When we got home, he was watching a movie and I asked what he’d eaten: “Two Luna bars,” he replied. I caved and made him a PB&J. Then I settled in next to him on the couch and we watched the rest of “Swindle,” a Nickelodeon original.

He’s still a boy.

Ten and 12-year olds. The sweet spot, I hear my friends say. That time when you still have your kids as kids but can give them enough independence to give yourself some independence. It goes quickly, I hear these friends say. Suddenly all that independence you’ve been waiting for them to get, for you to get — “please stop walking on my feet” — arrives, and you are walking freely, waving your arms ever so slightly at the phantom children closing in on you.