Every summer, Sophia Tolstoy moved her family to their summer home in the country. Most people who could left the city. Even in Soviet Russia, the government provided summer homes to almost everyone. And while no every summer home was alike, it was always a welcome respite to spend the hot summer months in the countryside.
This year, I too am fleeing to the country for the summer. In three weeks, I will be heading to Michigan.
Unlike Sophia, I am leaving my family behind. I have resisted publicly announcing this move. Moms aren't supposed to leave their children behind and go off to play for the summer. I am supposed to be driving 13 to band camp. I am supposed to be waiting up to make sure the teenagers come home on time. I am supposed to be stocking the pantry with snack food and telling them to bring their friends over to hang out in the basement.
Instead I am making a packing list as if I am the one leaving for camp.
Our lake cabin is more like a peasant's home than it is the Tolstoy's estate. Small, basic, lacking in modern ammenties. No dishwasher, no washing machine or dryer, no television. When we bought the cottage last year, I found an old wringer washer in the basement, and a more "modern" tabletop machine by Kenmore from the 1940s, both of which still work fine. The only remodeling I intend to do is install a clothesline out back. There are three small bedrooms filled with mostly, well, beds. There is one small bathroom; when the water warms up, we bath in the lake.
I will not miss any of these amenties nearly so much as I will miss my children. I know this.
And yet, I can't wait to be without them.
When my kids were little, I loved summer break. We went on hikes and joined the summer reading club at the library. We sat in the grass on blankets, eating popsicles. We took bike rides. We spent hours at the pool, coming home sunburned and exhausted the way only a day in the sun can make you feel.
Now all but one of my kids will be working summer jobs. One will be in Michigan with me, but I won't to see much of him. Another will be in LA for a summer internship. The three children I gave birth too will be spending a good chunk of the summer with their dad. Am I worried? You bet I am. Am I going anyway? Yep. And when I suggested otherwise, my kids were the first ones to tell me that I have to go.
Last week, I heard from a literary journal that they wanted to publish one of my stories. When I read the email, I cried, then I laughed, then I texted my daughter. Within an hour, all the other kids were texting me with congratulations. One of them, 18, a high school senior, wrote "I know how hard you have worked." 17 said, "I'm getting teary." Their happiness for me was better than any greeting card message about being a good parent.
I know I am going to take some hits from other mothers for this one, but I believe our children need to see us succeed. They need to see us work our asses off for what we are passionate about. They need to see us sacrifice and push ourselves. They need to see us putting ourselves out there, facing fear, being rejected, and getting back up to try again. This was a hard lesson for me to learn, and my children spent years teaching me. I was applying for a fellowship when 17 was about nine years old. I was sitting at the computer, contemplating not submitting my application. She stood in the doorway and said, Mom, you just have to do it.
"We will be okay," she said.
And when I was writing my Master's Thesis, all four daughters chimed in together, You can do it! I can still see them standing in the kitchen, pointing their fingers at me, telling me not to give up.
When our oldest daughter, 24, a midlde school teacher, heard that my three children were going to their dad's house, she looked at me and said, You're still going to the lake though, right?
There was a time when I would have given my life for children. It was easy to do, much easier than writing a story and sending it out into the world to have a life of its own.
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