the detritus of love

my oh-so-very-smart friend used a word in her recent email about graduation that i had to look up, thus making it a very happy day indeed to learn something new. she said, "my house here feels like a giant wave receded and left the detritus of a wonderful day."

detritus: loose fragments or grains that have been worn away from rock, eroded matter, accumulated material or debris.

it was a wonderful day to be sure. and here, accumulated in my heart, lives my own matter of mixed emotions. like a giant wave of love did indeed wash over me and leave behind memories of real conversations, bocce ball with small children, food of all colors spread across the counter like an indoor farmer's market, graduates crossing the stage...but mostly the overwhelming surprise of finding yourself caring about other people's children as if they were your own. it's hard to explain but i cried all the way home. in some ways it felt more like a tsunami of emotion that left behind a still-in-process montage of thoughts: the detritus of love.