And so begins another season of life here on Blaisdell.

Oldest daughter Leah and her wildly alive Pit Bull have moved out.  The room that housed her life treasures (and mine, for surely she is life treasure extraordinaire) is emptied.

It surprises me each time I go upstairs, this vacancy.

I am filled with wonder about this elastic and colossal thing called love.  It is a force in life that finds endless ways to hum between parents and children, partners and pets.

Children come, they go, they partner with others, they hurt, they triumph and always always there is space and hunger within me for their being.

I had lunch with my girls yesterday.  We walked arm in arm down the streets of St Paul and shared Thai food, laughter, and hearts.  Advice was sought and shared, notions played out and life swapped.  This morning I had breakfast with my 21-year-old son.  Always this child has been tender of heart and voracious in his hunger for life and living and while being a sometimes terrified bystander to his questing is rough going, my faith in his amazing beauty is boundless.

I have loved every phase of their being, these people who shared my body for a time.  I sometimes long for the days of sleeper jammies and newly washed heads under my chin for reading marathons.  I long on occasion for the days when I could tuck them in at night and rouse them in the morning.  Their presence in my every day was ground of my being.

And, it still is.  They are flown, my babies.  Flown to the lives they are creating through their willingness to engage and stretch and live.

They are treasure unbound.