Oh, So Quiet

I'm home from vacation.

While I was gone a set of transformations took place at my house. My friend Lisa the Lesbian Landscaper removed overgrown crap from my yard and put in shiny new baby shrubs and flowers. Red and purple. I have no idea what they are, but they look nice, and I am watering them now. My mom planted pumpkins in the back garden. If I don't kill them, we will have homegrown jack-o'lanterns in October. I bought a hose at the hardware store today. Whoa.

The most significant transformation was my bedroom and bathroom floors, which were refinished and replaced, respectively. Rad. They are lovely and make me smile when I walk into the room. Except that now, I have to replace everything that I'd shoved into the dining room and the kids' bedroom before leaving.

Basically, I'm moving back in.

The boys are with their father for two weeks, so it's the perfect time for organizing a home and refinishing a table, but it's also strange. I am alone, after three weeks of wonderful chaos and togetherness with fifteen other people. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. Lovers call, write and breeze into town, but I need time to process this trip and its meaning and implications. We are family now–Jefferson, his kin and mine–and it complicates things in the sweetest of ways.

I mean, his father kissed me and said, "You take good care of my boy."

I cried when we left, adding to the tears being shed by his mother and grandmother, who hugged me tight and said, "Love you, honey." Ach, it's so like that.

Joe picked me up from the airport and drove to his place where he seared tuna steaks on the grill, fed me, put me to bed and held me. I was happy to be there, but not quite ready to reenter life. When he drove me home in the morning I brightened, seeing the new life in the garden and the floors so new they shone like mirrors.