The Days Away
I closed the refrigerator door, giving it that extra press to be sure it was firmly shut, eyeing the notice attached to the door with a magnet. Short-pants had a school field trip coming up and these were the instructions about what to bring: a small backpack, a metro card, a bottle of water, a hat, rain gear, comfortable shoes. I’d suggested that we assemble her bag in advance because I was leaving the day before her trip, and I wouldn’t be able to help her the night before. But now I was about to leave – the taxi would come for me in ten minutes – and we hadn’t done it.
“You’ll have to prepare your backpack yourself,” I told her, thinking that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She’s at an age now where she should be able to collect a few necessities in a bag on her own.
“I thought we were going to do it together.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t now how. It’s that she relishes anything we can do together. She likes to hang out with me. A game of Bananagrams together delights her. She still comes in and cuddles with me in the morning. Or out of nowhere, standing in the kitchen, throws her arms around me in an unsolicited hug.
“You know how to do this,” I assured her.
She lifted her head up from her cereal bowl. “Do you have to go?”
This is always the part when my heart sinks and I swallow hard. There’s nothing to say to appease her, so I usually just shrug and give her a hug.
The thing is, I do have to go. If I didn’t get on an airplane every once in a while to go off on my own, I wouldn’t be the mother they love. I’d go stir crazy and my grumpiness alone would have an effect on them. I think it helps them to be independent, to see me doing my own things and coming home happy to see them. I know it keeps me sane.
Still, it’s hard. That chattering chorus sings behind me as I drag my suitcase out the door: you are neglecting them. You are missing important moments, and they won’t be long forever. You’re selfish. What kind of mother leaves her children, especially on mother’s day? This cacophony serenades me every trip, and though I can see my way out of the noise it makes, I am still surprised that I fall victim to these skeptical voices. They represent something I profess to reject: the firm hand of societal expectations about motherhood. But they are firmly embedded in our culture. I don’t necessarily pay them heed, but every time I leave I have to step over their sharp edges to get to the door.
~ ~ ~
While I’m gone I hardly check in. When I’m away for work, which is usually pretty intense, the timing never seems to fit what’s happening at home. If it’s an escape trip, well, where’s the escape if you’re constantly phoning home? Plus it’s disruptive. When the girls were younger and De-facto called home from the road, it did more harm than good. They’d be playing along, living in the present that is the world of young toddlers, and his call would remind them that he was gone. The tears that came after hanging up seemed hardly worth the quick check-in, which was usually a pretty inane conversation anyway.
It’s the same for us. There’s a certain disconnect when one of us is away – for work or fun – and the other is home administering the day-to-day routine. The conversations are filled with lost-in-translation moments that leave us feeling further apart than before the call. We’ve gotten into the practice of keeping correspondence to a minimum, which means staying present, mentally, in the place that we’re working or visiting, doing the things that we do without the angst of not being home. It seems like a waste to be someplace interesting only to spend your time there wishing you weren’t. 
Not that I don’t ever call and say hello – but it might happen every few days, not a few times a day. This way, by the end of the trip, I’m missing him and the girls pretty fiercely, which makes the coming home part, all the more sweet.
~ ~ ~
Three trips in May means I’m gone seventeen days and all or part of four weekends. I missed the Spanish Mother’s Day a week ago and the American Mother’s Day yesterday. I’ll be missing the French Fête des Mères at the end of the month, too. I remember hesitating before booking all these trips, one for work, two for personal visits, and wondering if the time I was allotting myself at home between them was sufficient. I can tell you now it’s not. My overdose of voyaging has put me off my drug of choice. I’m longing for my own bed and my own people and even, maybe, a bit of humdrum routine. This is the plan for June, but right now next month seems ages away. I can’t complain. I get to visit some festive and exotic, interesting places: Sevilla last week, Tanzania this week. But at the moment my family feels too far away. I’m surprised to be counting the days that I’m away from home, and even more surprised to be counting the days until I get back.