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Youngest daughter, HoneyLuna, came home last night and she and her daddy and I trundled off to the Monticello Opera House for a performance of a play called Nice People Dancing To Good Country Music. It was a fine performance and we did the dinner thing before the performance, which is always fun.

It was bittersweet for me. For the last two years I've been part of the performance and I've missed it so much this year. I literally dream of the Opera House, quite frequently. I've wondered if I would have hit such a low spot this year if I'd been involved in the fall production. The people who get involved in these plays are such lovely people and the community that evolves as the show evolves is almost magical. It was great to see some of these folks last night. There is a connection there which is something I can't quite explain. It's based on the many inside jokes that arise as rehearsals take place, the joy that comes when things start to come together, the coming together of grown-up people to play. As much as I love the performances, they make me sad because they signal the end of that coming-together, that joy of creating.

Well.

It was fun getting ready to go with my daughter, too. She ended up wearing a dress of mine that is beloved to me. I've had it for as least as long as she's been alive and she wore a pair of my shoes, too, that made her even taller than her own tall self and watching her as she moved across the floor last night tugged my heart fiercely. She's been in several Opera House productions, too, and the folks there love her. They hug her and kiss her and tell her how beautiful she is and it's always a different kind of joy to hear that sort of thing about your babies.

When we were in my room before we left, finishing up our hair and playing with eye-shadow, she said, "Mommy?"
And I said, "What baby?"
And she said, "Nothing. I just like saying Mommy."
And I thought, how I love hearing it.

It's funny- I am sending this girl out into the world joyfully because the world needs her and our little place here in Lloyd is way too small for her. But when she's back, when she's here at home with us, there is a completeness that I can't explain. The only thing better is when all the kids are here, as they sometimes are the night before Thanksgiving, or Christmas. Mr. Moon and I always go to bed before they do and it feels so fine to know that all of them are under one roof again. I don't think I worry about them when they're not here, but when they ARE, I realize that I do, some small part of my brain is always occupied with doing an eternal roll-call. This one is in that place, that one is in another place, are they all okay? Are they all safe and well?

It's not that I miss having them all at home. I love the way the house feels when Mr. Moon and I have it all to ourselves.

But having them home, whether singly or all together, is a different sort of thing entirely, a special, rare and wonderful event which makes my heart rest easy.

Lately my heart has been sore and my mind has been uneasy and I am working my way through it all. I am having to face truths about myself and the part of life I'm in. It's not easy.
It's not easy taking a script and a stage and a group of people and making a sort of reality out of flat words on pages and it's not easy making a family and then sending them all out into the world, one at a time, to find their places in it.

But it's all work worth doing. It's all work that makes the heart soar, even as the heart is sore, because there are no beginnings without endings. There are no arrivings without leavings.
There are no coming-togethers without splitting-aparts.

And that's what I'm thinking about on this beautiful, cool Saturday morning here in North Florida as the pecans let their leaves flutter to the ground in the breeze and the birds fuss about a hawk they've seen in the vicinity and the rooster crows next door telling me that day is here, day is here, day is here, yet again.

That things are created, families and plays and homes and hearts and they break apart and they come together again if the work is done, if the love is true, if the core is strong, if the time is right.

And that there are tiny miracles and joys if we let ourselves see them, if we accept them, if we don't shut ourselves off entirely, trying blindly to ward off pain.

There are.