Anita's Sky

It’s been a long time. The in-laws are long gone and much missed. I was back at work full time for a week and cannot imagine how other full time moms do it. It was awful. I came home exhausted at 3:30 and Lukas was just entering his fussy period and had already taken both his daily naps and I didn’t get a break until he went to bed at 8. I was totally worn down and was sick all last week as I recovered from it. I still have a weird sore throat which has inspired fears of an incurable illness that would cause me to be sick and weak for the rest of my life. How do those full time mommies do it?

Life with Lukas has been pretty full time. All he wants to do now is walk around with me attached and supporting him. His lack of fear is inspiring and terrifying as he leans and reaches for things. He doesn’t see the corner of the table above him, the book about to fall on his head, the door handle he could scrape himself on. He just reaches. And when he falls, I am there and I catch him. I am the little guardian angel behind him.

When I was in my early 20’s I traveled around Europe a lot. For a few months I lived in Switzerland in this amazing woman’s attic while I worked on an experimental theatre piece. It was all a bit of a fairy tale. Let me digress a bit. The woman’s name was Anita. She was a seamstress who only worked at night. She lived on cappuccino and espresso and only liked to eat things that were orange like apricots and carrots. She had two children named Pablo and Meret. Meret rode a unicycle in the garden and Pablo was prone to sudden bursts of crying. I lived on the third floor with a window with shutters that opened out to a view of the town plaza, a fountain and bakery and the distant wine fields with a castle at the top. A dreamy place for a dreamy American girl. There was a cluttered room nearby filled with nick knacks and a bathroom with a map of the world on the wall. Anita was recently divorced and was trying to make sense of things. At the time she seemed so much older but now I realize that she is not much older than I am today. After she put the kids to bed we would sit up and talk while she worked. One night she told me how her life had changed since she lost her “sky”. When I asked what this meant she explained that when she was younger she felt as if she was supported from above. Things often fell into place easily. Decisions were almost made for her. She was led. As she grew older, towards the end of her 20’s she felt as if she was losing her sky. She felt that she had to make decisions alone now and the consequences were so much greater. I remember how sad that sounded to me at the time. When I left her I drew a picture of a sky and gave it to her…so that she could have a piece of mine.
As I am now almost as old as Anita was then, I begin to understand more what she was speaking of. I too have felt my sky move away. I have landed on the earth now. I am more responsible for things.
As I stand behind my son for hours with my arms extended, ready to catch him in all directions, as I hold his hands lightly and shuffle along behind him, as I guide him quietly away from danger, I feel that I am acting as his sky for the moment. That is my job. Maybe my sky has moved further away than it was as I will one day be further away from Lukas but it is still there. I like to imagine those invisible hands behind me….guiding me….steering me away from danger and towards beautiful new discoveries.