Making (a Romance) at Home

I have been thinking lately, as I often do, about the film Moonstruck. I have seen it probably thirty times but even if you haven’t watched it, you may know the famous “Snap out of it!” line, spoken by Cher’s character, Loretta, after she slaps Nicholas Cage’s Ronny. This comes after their first sexual encounter, when she is feeling confused and regretful. But before that, there is the scene where they fall in love during a discussion at his kitchen table, while they drink whiskey and eat the steak she has cooked.

I am a writer, a reader, and a teacher. I’m a mother, a friend, a sister, an aunt, a girlfriend and always, a daughter, although my parents have been gone for some time. But what I have probably spent most of my time doing over the past twenty years is making a home. I’ve been a homemaker. This is, of course, very closely related to my role as a mother. My oldest child is twenty years old now. During my long marriage, homemaking was much more time-consuming than it is now, living on my own. I don’t know why that is the case, but I have some theories.

Loretta has sought out Ronny because her fiancé, his brother, asked her to invite him to their wedding. She finds Ronny at his job, where he bakes bread. The furnaces are under the store and the workers are flushed from their efforts, and the heat. Ronny loses his temper during his first encounter with Loretta; he…