Bon Voyage, Baby

Mark is going to India for two weeks, and friends and family who know I’ll stay home juggling a toddler, an upcoming book release, and photography business indicate one thing by their reactions: I must be crazy in love to let him go. Or just plain crazy.

For nearly a year, Mark’s planned to travel to the Himalayan foothills to photograph the Kumbh Mela, a mass Hindu pilgrimage that occurs every 12 years and is now expected to attract up to 20 million people. (That’s more than twice the population of New York City.) He goes to India every year. His tickets were booked months ago, and the journey to his favorite place on the planet provides him with a constant source of inspiration and creativity. More than that, it makes him happy.

I’ll miss him terribly. I worry endlessly (even more than usual, though I trust him and know his judgment is sound) and make him draft contingency plans, give me emergency contacts, and copies of his documents. I remind him about first aid supplies and malaria pills; it must get annoying. At the same time, I worry about myself. I ask him to take care of Emma more than usual in the mornings running up to his departure date so that I can stockpile sleep for the long haul on my own. (I’m not a morning person. Never have been.) It’s not even that long; I’m a wuss. I’m lucky that we both work from home and know how fortunate we are compared to parents who work at offices and are separated by travel. By necessity. Even by war.

If Emma and I could go with him to India, we would, and one day we will, I tell people. But many don’t understand why he has to make the trip, and why I’m okay with it. “Does he have to go now?” some ask, with a look of concern. “Will you be okay? It must be so hard on you,” others tell me. “I wish he wouldn’t go,” said more than one person.

And yet, when I’ve told these same people how I’ve spent months writing and editing a book and have upcoming promotional events on the East Coast that may take me away from Emma and Mark, they rarely express concern for his well-being. They don’t mention the timing could be bad for him or ask how he’ll manage the multitude of responsibilities at home. They don’t teasingly scold me for leaving him behind.

I won’t lie: I do most of the laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, and organizing of appointments, school commutes, and child care. I answer the phone 99 percent of the time (“It’s always for you,” he says), handle our photography bookings, buy gifts, and arrange the bulk of our social plans. You could say I’m our band’s frontwoman. But Mark earns our steady income while my freelance assignments ebb and flow. He pays our bills and shoots and processes photos for days at a time (and often nights). He negotiates with Comcast and the insurance company or whoever else is trying to scam us. He repairs whatever’s broken, takes out the recyclables, takes Emma to gym class, plans romantic suprises, and…well, let’s just say he’s often the roadie. But he also is my rock.

I’m not saying Mark has to do these things to “earn” a trip abroad. I’m only trying to express that we are not only best friends, soulmates, lovers, and parents, but we are partners. And partners means that for all the extra stress, anxiety, and loneliness in his absence, his happiness is paramount to me. He feels the same way about mine and even asks if I want to go on a similar adventure. (The answer is no; I spent enough of my life alone to not want to travel without him and Emma if I can help it.) So when people ask me why India every year, why now, why ever, I’m grown-up and secure enough in his commitment to us to know that he is not making a choice between me and something else, and that I would not want to ask him to.

We experienced a lot before we met and before we became parents. I studied politics and culture in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. I am a potter and a kayaker. He is fascinated by British history in India. He loves yoga and films. How sad it would be for us now to extinguish the interests and passions that attracted us to each other in the first place. And how sad a lesson it would be for our daughter, too, if we shared a life where we became less than the sum of our parts rather than more.