pull up a chair

dear reader, fear not. at last writing, as i bemoaned the absence of progeny in this old house, and awoke to the relative quietude of life as empty nester, i might have seeded worry. what will she do, that poor blithering mama, you might have wondered. will she clock her time staring out the window, awaiting the return of said progeny galloping in from distant plains, in need of laundry, grilled cheese, or any other assorted task for which a mother is distinctly schooled?

worry not: purpose has arrived.

yes, indeedy. in the form of unknown possibly invisible creatures lurking in the chamber where the recently departed (from this house, that is) now attempts to sleep. these invisible and invincible forces seem intent on making the boy rub his nose and eyes and sneeze. all night long. and well into the daylight.

and so, the call has come. i am (somewhat) needed. or, at least my vacuum is. and i, taking no such task lightly, i’ve equipped myself with a whole battery of dust-bunny-battling weaponry. just last night my friends at amazon delivered the air purifier deemed best in class by the folks at wirecutter, that band of trusty testers at the new york times. and i’ve a gallon jug of vinegar, a mop, and microfiber dust cloths, enough to wipe out legions of pesky mites.

dust buster am i.

all of which points to the foregone conclusion that ol’ mothers never ever pass their expiration dates. we are not sent off to distant pastures. our aprons and our mops, never really set out to dry. we do not wither on the vine. we are, if not invincible, indelibly anchored in the domestic equation.

why, just this week the kid who mostly dashed in and out of the house whilst he was living here, has seen fit to call me for instructions on: a.) how to work a wet mop; b.) what to take for allergies; c.) what else to take for allergies; and d.) all of the above.

it’s a reassuring thing to know the worry chambers of my mama brain need not turn off. i can still muster up a storm in there, scheming up the options, imagining the worst. and, then, as i’ve done since the first note of first pregnancy, i leap into action. if i can slay one dragon––be it lost mitten in the long ago, or dust mites under the bed today––i sidle one inch nearer to indispensability. or so i pretend.

the truth, as i’ve long known, is that love––in any form––does not subscribe to geographical or chronological bounds. i can love as fiercely and devotedly whether you’re under my roof or far far from here. ours is a world in which distance is a given. we are no longer a people of the shtetl or the lane. i only wish those i love lived nearby enough to rap at the door and sidle in for tea. or late night storytelling.

be it by the powers of imagination or a polished knack for empathy, the human heart is the inexplicable muscle with unbound capacity to stretch from here to eternity. and in so doing, we can fiercely and fine-grainedly love the ones too far away or the ones who are no longer, for their essence burns on and on as long as we are breathing. and, sometimes, in the uncanniest of ways: in reaching for my mother-in-law’s signature-red coffee mug on any morning, i can suddenly hear her singsong way of telling me her faith in me has never dulled. and she’s been gone now for nearly three years.

the resurrective powers of love are without rhyme or reason. and, indeed, they save us.

i’ve thought plenty in recent months about the muscularity of love. how it has propelled me up steep inclines, ones i might not have found the nerve to climb had i not felt some forcefield behind me. i’ve a never-ending fascination with this ineffability we know as love, not as valentine ephemera, but love as true physical force, love as divinely inspired. with the power to heal. the power to quell. and, sometimes, the power to slay a bunny made of dust.

your thoughts on the mystical powers of love welcome here: