Mother And The Unexplored Homeland

The streets were empty and the homes, full. So were the hearts. Families dining together. Laughter – now louder than the sounds of cars we mistook for wind – released the long-forgotten sorrow into the air. The birds now took care of it, healing it with their song of hope, of beginning again. 

And mothers became the pioneers we so tenaciously observed. In this foreign territory we now find ourselves willing prisoners to, we obey a new ruler. "Here's the map to the pots and pans", she offers. "This corner is for communing, that one for sleep. The plant goes there, doesn't it feel like home?" It is infinite in here, they've known it for forever now. And the children revered her. And the bedtime stories were about a time when they had to do it all by themselves, dodging and transforming the bits of outside world that got handed to them at the end of each day. So that it wouldn't stick to the walls. The new fantastic creature is the one who knows nourishment, and sun-through-the-window time, and how to bake sweet potatoes. Everything from scratch. Our pasta. Our routines. Our relationships. 

Faced with death, the only enemy left to fight was our fear and the single available weapon: love. So that we could make a difference. So that we could hold and eventually reinvent a suffering bigger than our own. And she, who had always walked disarmed and thoroughly trained in the military of the heart, became prestigious general. Maximum authority, ultimate hero. We started to understand why it was so important we sat together. And looked into each other's eyes. And sometimes prayed. And always worked through something. The care she took for the rug suddenly made perfect sense. It was our ground. 

And as we got used to each other's sleep schedules and sadness and hangryness and hopes, like a cell we began to pulse. The nucleus is her. It's so nice when the windows are clean. It's essential to have shelves and clean towels and fresh bananas, even if you never eat them and all you do is admire the colors our planet created for us. Because there we were. Alive. Things tasted better. Good mornings were sweeter. Raspberries were sweeter. Veggies felt like craving junk food – how impossibly delicious to receive the love our bodies had been starving for. Slow. Natural. Enough. There was nowhere to be, so we just were. The hugs became essential from those we could touch. And we promised ourselves that when the doors were open and the world was born anew we would never miss the chance to wrap our arms around another again. Just like she had always taught us every time we came back home.