Contentment

Last night a friend brought Patrick and Maggie home from their Austin college home. Backpacks, suitcases, boxes of shoes, lots of the running variety. Stuff galore, carried in through the bakery. Siblings all around. Of course the first thing we did was tour the college kids around the yard. They oohed and aahed over the baby raspberries. Delighted in the new grapevines and plum tree that is sporting new green leaves. Marveled over the fig trees, with the biggest load of figs we have had in our five seasons here in Alpine. Perhaps they like the generous feedings of chicken manure the past two years? They said hello to chickens, to baby peppers and eggplants and ignored the unmowed yard, commented on all our hard work this spring. While everyone finished getting things together, I sat at the table, exhausted from a long weekend of work, and Maggie massaged my head, played with my hair, and loved on me. Oh, to soak up that tenderness and physical affection.

Then everyone moved into the kitchen, and all my five children, mostly taller than me, and pretty much on their way to adulthood, sat around the same table. Six of us. Family. We feasted on a giant pork roast, cooked all day long while I was at work. Roasted cauliflower, crispy around the edges. Green beans from the farmer's market, sauteed with red peppers and garlic. A giant pot of mashed potatoes, cooked by Thomas.

I am not exactly sure what we talked about. Not politics. Not religion. We just laughed and felt the absolutely refreshing joy of being. I hope you know what I am talking about. The comfort of being in a place where you don't have to be any particular thing, because you are known and have been known, and can't really pretend anyway. Maggie left the table to spend time with her dear friend who happens to be home for a visit. Rose went to finish up some homework. Thomas took off to his apartment, sated by the meal and icecream. Patrick and Nora took on kitchen cleanup, and when I went to bed, I smiled to hear them chatter away as they cleaned up the dishes.

In a blink, everyone will be off and about for summer adventures. I do not wish for my kids to all stay home and sit at my table everyday! But oh, the delight I experience when they come back and we share garden, and stories, and food and love.