Flowers Fall: August 2011

by Bethany Saltman, July 27, 2011

Last month I wrote about how T and I had planned a mommy-and-daddy-only trip to Italy for our 10th wedding anniversary. Azalea was to stay with T’s parents, who love her like crazy and the feeling is mutual. She wouldn’t be left with a random babysitter who answered an ad like some people (from Michigan, named Bethany), and yet, we felt sad to be without her for a whole week, and, reading the cues she was putting out in her special five-year-old way—for instance, saying, Please don’t leave me—we were genuinely afraid we might be making a big mistake. Might we, in the words of attachment-parenting unschooler Naomi Aldort, create “marks for life” by inflicting upon her “even one premature experience” of being separated from me, her mom? (In keeping with the often biblically influenced tenor of attachment parenting advocates—psst: Dr. Sears and his wife Martha are born-again Christians—Ms. Aldort rarely mentions fathers.) Setting aside the fire-and-brimstone tone in describing what might happen if a child is unplugged from her “power source,” as Ms. Aldort refers to mothers, T and I had our own genuine concerns.

But we went.

And now we’re back!

And I am happy to say, we all lived to tell about it.

The first few minutes were excruciating for me. After saying good-bye, Azalea’s sad little kiss-blowing face burned in my mind, I cried. Wondered if we should be doing this. Too late! T said, rightly. So we went. To the airport, waiting in lines, sitting at the gate. (Alone….conversation, thoughts meandering….) Nine hours on the plane (Talking, reading, sleeping). Finding the train to Rome from the airport, then just getting on the train. Walking from Rome’s Termini station to our cute little room, which actually stayed really tidy. The first cappuccino we bought, the taste of that creamy foam in the little ceramic cup, no to-go containers anywhere! Famished, our first meal, a salad with corn, tuna, shredded carrots, romaine, mushrooms from a little fast-foodish place. Unbelievably delicious, fresh, fruity olive oil, balsamic, salt, and pepper. Did I miss Azalea and want her to try the light, oily focaccia, cut with scissors? To see all the fancy ladies in their high heels? To hear the sound of Italian, all those vowels, the song of such a juicy, relaxed place? Heck, yes. And did I miss her like mad? The entire time, actually. But it was also quite delightful to experience it all on my own, with T, simply, with so little confusion or interruption or explaining. Just two people in the world.

Meanwhile, Azalea was being chauffeured to various beaches, restaurants, pools, and homes with a collection of her favorite admirers. We Skyped with her every day, around midnight Italy time (after our oh-so-civilized dinner). She always looked totally comfortable on her grandparents’ laps, fiddling with their bodies the way she does with mine. That hurt to see, but I knew it was a good sign. She often seemed a little distant, even wanting to go because they were on their way to someplace fun. I worried that she was mad at us, but I also figured that would be very natural, and that we would deal with it when we came back. It was pretty clear that she was not suffering in any terribly acute way. Even so, I fully expected, upon our return, a cold shoulder and/or a meltdown, at the very least, and a complete disruption of our family flow, at worst. However, none of the above has happened.