My whole life I’ve known that my grandmother came to this country in 1920 with her parents. She was 8 years old. None of them spoke a word of English. I’ve often wondered what it must have been like to come into that unknown, unfamiliar land, and start brand new. What I’ve never considered, before tonight, is the unbearableness of what they had to have behind. How bad must life have been, for them to have packed up and come across an entire ocean, to an unknown world just for the possibility of finding something better, something safer, something perhaps, a bit less hateful? For the first time in my life, I have an inkling. I know what it feels like to be living in a homeland so unempathetic that I feel (and I fear) that the only conceivable option is to leave it behind. 

It never gets an easier, even after all this time. The sight of them, backs to me, as they head out the door. Hair still wet from the shower, bags of accessories in one hand, lunches in the other. Now, they carry their own car keys, too. Still, when they go, a little piece of me leaves with them, my heart no longer whole. I wish there was more to hang on to, the excited retelling of their day, what happened to whom, and the impromptu choruses of *Sweet. Baby James.” The days interminable until they return again. This week, Saturday, next not till Sunday. Until then the cords of my heart will remain taut, like the strings of their shoulder bags. 

Everyone keeps reminding me how hard empty nesting will be. I’m glad to see my kids launch themselves into the great unknown. But that can’t be harder than this. Wednesday morning cereal bowls sitting in the sink. Tonight there won’t be dinner plates, too.

I wish for them lights upon their ankles, illuminating each tiny step in front of them. I, too, will walk into the next hour, and the next hour, and the next, one at a time, wondering how they’re doing, what they’re thinking, whose heart is breaking, and who is is spilling over. I will sit in the unknowing. Until they return.

Making love with him 
is like bursting
with fragile hope.

His touches, ocean waves
Carrying and crashing,
Carrying and crashing.

Please continue. 
Breathless, trembling,
I want to go back in.

I kept on chopping the peppers into smaller and smaller bits, the minutes ticking by far slower than the water boiling on the stove, in preparation for the noodles that would bend and soften, yielding to its heat.

The blood in my veins threatened to gather speed upon the news, same for my heart, but I decided instead, to stay calm, wait it out, at least until we knew more, or had a real reason to worry.

The rhythm of the knife against the board reminded me of that day so long ago, when folding the baskets of laundry was all I could do. Reach in, pick it up, bring the corners together, over and over again, as if the repeated folding and pressing with my fingers could ease the mounting anxiety, as I sat alone on our plaid couch, listening to the baby monitor, and the news from the other room.

I spent hours that day, waiting, and wishing (hopelessly) that my husband would look for me and tell me that everything was going to be ok. (He didn’t come.) Instead, he watched those same, horrific images playing over and over again, endlessly, while I soothed out the wrinkles from his t-shirts.

This afternoon waiting for the all-clear, I made the pasta salad. Hopeful that tomorrow we’d be ok, safe inside the brick structure, that seemed so tenuous today.