Heaven

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home
and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.”
– Lin Yutang

I love to travel. In fact, when I grow up, I intend to travel often. This world has so much to see and so much to do. I want to take it all in; to squeeze the earth into my head, wrap my cranium around it and never let it go.

Chicago was awe-inspiring. It was amazing to see the bright lights of the big city. To watch a crowd cheer on their home team. To sit on the steps of a museum and listen to a concert. To eat and eat and eat. And to walk and walk and walk and walk.

And yet it was also marvelous to come home. The first thing I did (even before greeting the kids) was to inspect the fruit trees and garden. The plums and peaches were ready for picking. My tomatoes had finally turned red. The chickens were laying on a regular basis. Then kids came streaming out the door, neighborhood friends in tow, and the crisp autumn air filled with laughter.

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The next day I found myself in the kitchen. School was out. Pizza dough was rising. The boys were fishing. The girls were playing quietly. Pandora was serenading me from the computer. My hands were buried in a bowl of oats, butter, cinnamon and brown sugar when this song came on:

Indeed I was in heaven.

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Someday soon I hope to venture out again. But for now I'm quite content to rest my weary head in this house where pet fur abounds, the laundry multiplies like rabbits and the dishes follow suit. Today there is no place I'd rather be.

Tonight is pizza night. Homemade pizza. This is the lull, the gentle rocking of the ship, the twenty-four hours between night and day shift. I am in a daze, tired, sleep deprived. But we are committed to eating at home and pizza will hit the spot. Prosciutto, roasted garlic, sundried tomatoes and leafy greens - fancy homemade pizza with homemade dough. The dough is easy: yeast, flour, sugar, salt and water - all thrown together in the stand mixer. But the part I love the best is working the dough before it goes off to nap, to rise. Ring off and shirt covered in flour I massage the consecration; stress falling from my shoulders to leaven neonatal crust. I feel useful, old-fashioned, redeemed. It’s as if homemade dough will erase my transgressions. I will be pardoned for working nights. For missing dinners and bedtimes. For not being home to enforce the rules, to instill order. For being exhausted. I am a good mother because I make pizza. Through dough I will be forgiven.