Two days ago I posted an essay that has been, by far, the most heavily read piece I've ever put up on this blog. Although it only garnered five comments here, I heard from many, many people on email and Facebook, people who were quoting it and sharing it with their own friends. Though I expected that at least a few of those responses would be rebuttals, I received nothing of the sort. Moreover, many of the people who responded live in the city, where they have office or teaching jobs. Several were men who place high value on the daily labor they do at home. Several were people who do not define themselves as artists of any kind.

I did not, however, receive any response from the women writers' organization whose Facebook page first led me to Mary Rechner's article. The link I posted there was automatically shunted to an obscure section of the page, where no one will be likely to notice it. This conversational discouragement may be accidental or purposeful; I can't say. Nonetheless, it seems typical of this particular organization's operational style and continues to give me that niggling suspicion that its leaders believe that some women's voices are more equal than others.

The responses I received from you, the people who did read my essay, reinforce that feeling. All of you--male or female, urban or rural, striving artist or not, parents or not--showed me that you take your home tasks very seriously, that these private duties within your private life have an almost ritual importance, that they feed both your inner and outer worlds. They also showed me that you feel defensive about these duties, that you suspect other people of ridiculing or dismissing or sentimentalizing them.

Today my older son leaves for college. A few days ago he was the first responder in a horrible car accident beside our driveway, in which an elderly man lost fingers. Meanwhile, a friend struggles as his thirteen-year-old daughter dies of brain cancer. Our small family swirls with emotion. But last night we sat down and ate dinner together, as we have done for eighteen years. We talked and laughed. Then we washed dishes. For every person around the table--the four of us, plus J's lifelong best friend--this was a sweet and bittersweet ceremony; a familiar, strange, sad happiness. We made no speeches and offered no toasts. All we did was to eat the somewhat ramshackle dinner that a father and a mother had cooked together for their son. But do not tell me that planning and preparing and consuming this dinner was a waste of our artistic time.

James's last supper at home, featuring a disorganized smorgasbord of his favorite summer foods: guacamole with lots of cilantro; London broil marinated in tamari and garlic and cooked over a wood fire; fire-roasted onions and hot peppers; salad of bow-tie macaroni with oven-roasted green beans, hard-boiled eggs, fresh dill, and parsley; salad of fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, and mozzarella; strawberry-blackberry cobbler with whipped cream; and, I'm sorry to say, cans of Moxie. Ick.