Homemaker

Naptime has cast its spell over this Minneapolis home. Firm September breezes comb through the curtains. Between their strokes, sunlight stripes the furniture and the pendulum flickers lightly in its glass case. A goldfinch perches on the feeder through the kitchen window, then flashes its white tailfeathers as it lifts up and away. The crickets are insistent in the weedy side yard at my back.

I have coffee, warm in its stainless steel container though it was brewed shortly after dawn with the children's eggs and toast. It sits on a highchair in the debris of the baby's lunch: stiffening noodles, a puddle of milk flecked by zucchini bread crumbles and cubes of cantaloupe. On the floor the recycling bin has been emptied and disassembled, and a rolling pin crusted with mottled blue and pink playdough leans against a similarly crusted chair leg. A pair of snap-up blue jeans, size 12 month, tangles with the power cord of my laptop nearby, and a lone toddler sandal waits on the coffee table. A thicket of stencils and pencils has overgrown the dining table. Blades of grass and garden scraps leave a trail from the back entry to the counter, where my daughter left a pail of under-ripe cherry tomatoes she'd plucked after breakfast.

Today I attend to this all, but not in the usual way of sweeping and wiping, folding and gathering and re-ordering.

It is autumn. The yellow buses again haul their cargo down our street as the naptime hour nears its end. I am in my fourth year of motherhood. I need reminding that paying attention is a way of desiring, a form of prayer. So I wait on the truth of my life here, where my children are absent yet present, and what I have made in this home has found its fulfillment in being unmade. My love for them remembers itself, flickers over every mess with tenderness.

The baby has begun to fuss. Now I am ready to stand, gather him in my rested arms, and begin again.