This week I am back to busyness. With no snowstorms in sight, I'll be heading to Waterville for the Poetry Out Loud finals tomorrow, then teaching on Wednesday afternoon, then driving north for band practice on Wednesday night, then rushing home on Thursday for class prep, and then teaching again on Thursday night. I suppose this is how regular people live, but it seems like a lot of uproar to a homebody.

Thus, today I will wash sheets and clean the oven. In the meantime, I will also think about mothers and sons. Last Friday, as I was talking to the men who showed up for the community writing session, I understood how ubiquitous that link can be. A young man from the American South; an older man from the Democratic Republic of Congo: both spoke yearningly of their mothers, as if there, in that connection, lay the soul of their loves and troubles. I, the mother of sons, could not help but worry and rejoice and worry. I do not know the future of my own tremulous link, only that it will continue to vibrate. Every day I miss the presence of their bodies in my empty rooms; their laughter, their huffy complaints, their outrage and their patience. And then the phone rings, and I answer, and even through the crackling ether, I feel our line trembling again.