The In-Between: Mother and Artist
West Japan (More or Less) Travel Notes — Part II
Why I Tour With My Two-Year-Old
This is an essay about choosing to travel with my daughter,
about tracing her growth from stage to stage,
and about navigating the fragile balance between mother and artist.
The In-Between: Mother and Artist
West Japan (More or Less) Travel Notes — Part II
Previous:
Part I — Touring with a Two-Year-Old
https://medium.com/@ekotumi/the-in-between-again-touring-with-a-two-year-old-2d6993c52cc1
***
Even before giving birth, I had already decided:
When I become a mother, I will go on tour with my child.
I feared that if I ever abandoned touring “because of my daughter,”
I might one day resent becoming a parent at all.
That thought alone felt unbearable.
But once she was born, that conviction changed — quietly, but profoundly.
Not the part about taking her with me; that remained.
What changed was the reason.
I simply loved her too much to be apart.
Even though she spends her days at nursery school,
I could not imagine going several days without seeing her face.
There was another reason, too.
I wanted her to see her mother working — truly working — with her whole being.
Someday, I believe that will become a bond between us,
a thread she can hold onto when she looks back at where she comes from.
And then there was one more reason, the most practical of all:
there was simply no one to leave her with.
We are what is politely called a “one-parent-in-practice” household.
My husband is constantly away on business trips.
My mother, now elderly, could watch her for a few hours,
but even a single night would be difficult.
A local child support center once gave me “advice.”
They told me about a facility where a child can stay for up to a week.
They even suggested, quite firmly, that it would be better to leave her there.
But let me return to my very first reason.
I want to be with her.
I don’t want to miss a single day as she changes and grows,
right before my eyes.
(To be honest, that suggestion to leave a pre-verbal child
in a facility for a week while I went on tour —
without her understanding why she couldn’t see her mother —
felt far more cruel than anything else.
Am I the only one who thinks so?)
I want to stay close to her.
And at the same time, I don’t want to abandon the part of myself
that is an artist.
So we traveled:
Osaka(Domestic) when she was 3 months old,
Bulgaria at 10 months,
Italy at 1 year and 4 months.
We went through much in between,
and now here we are again: she is 2 years and 4 months old.
Let’s compare where Mini-Tumi stood at each stage:
3 months: holding her head up.
10 months: pulling herself to a stand; sometimes taking steps.
1 year 4 months: walking everywhere, climbing stairs, sometimes running — still wobbly.
2 years 4 months: running. Full speed.
Fast enough that her mother occasionally needs to sprint.
(Diapers at every stage.)
Each age came with its own challenges —
and its own small reliefs:
3 months: light enough to carry.
10 months: not yet able to wander off alone.
1 year 4 months: no special baby food necessary; we could manage anywhere.
2 years 4 months: we can talk. We can negotiate.
And sometimes, it’s okay to let go of her hand.
Which brings us to the question:
What happens when you let go of that hand?
—
This essay is part of the series
“The In-Between: Mother and Artist.”
Previous:
Part I — Touring with a Two-Year-Old
https://medium.com/@ekotumi/the-in-between-again-touring-with-a-two-year-old-2d6993c52cc1
Next:
Part III — The Luggage
https://medium.com/@ekotumi/the-in-between-mother-and-artist-west-japan-more-or-less-travel-notes-part-iii-the-luggage-3232cbb5c967
