Earth Mother

As the smell of freshly baked bread fills my home and I sit here with my cup of decaf coffee, completely at peace with how my life is unfolding, I wonder how I fell so easily into domesticity.

Since I have been a wee little one, I have always wanted to teach and write. Odd how sometimes we take the playful desires of a child and turn them into careers. That's what happened to me, I think. As soon as my mother saw me play "teacher," she began to prod me in that direction. I was only too happy to go along because I enjoyed the subject matter but if you had asked me if that's what I wanted to dedicate my life to, I would have shrunk and said, no. I want a husband who is happy to come home to me and children that drive me crazy all day. 

I know I do it, too. Oh, Bombie likes to read, maybe she'll be a librarian. Okay, so you know I'm kidding but only slightly. Why the push to concretize and harden what is pliable, beautiful and God-given in our children? 

I enjoy teaching, learning, research, reading, study - and my passion is translating that into something tangible that can be grasped by someone else. A moment captured, however fleeting, an insight shared, wholly untouched by anything extraneous, gives me a deep sense of joy. I cannot explain it any other way. 

And maybe that's why I am enjoying domesticity. Freshly baked bread tells my husband something about how my day has been. Putting away laundry with the children playing by my feet or having them do chores speaks about a life truly shared on a moment by moment, ordinary level. All the minutiae of keeping a home and blessing it with my presence and my undivided heart all day long is to me the very root of what a family is. It is giving myself, my deepest, best, most precious self - in its entirety - to them. 

I have no desire to go back to work, to sow hours which others can reap and hand weary leftovers to my family. After years of searching, I am truly home.