I’ve been thinking about space for the past weeks. When you are a mother of young kids, you crave it. At least I do. If Hannah is not crying and asking for a cuddle, Rachel is right behind me, like a shadow, pulling at my arms, my clothes. Often they are both physically battling for a spot on my lap. If I lie down on the floor to stretch, one or two small bodies climb on top of me. When I put the girls to bed, my dog steps up to the plate, jumping up from the floor as I am kissing Hannah and wagging her tail eagerly as I head towards the bedroom. If I lie down on the bed, she’s often right up in my face, wanting some physical attention, rewarding me with unsavory kisses. And then of course, there is my husband, who needs attention, too. Poor guy. He’s left with the dregs at the bottom of the barrel.

Is this modern, to crave space? I’ve been wondering. Is it natural? They keep building bigger and bigger houses…humongous houses. In fact, I think houses now are the new SUV. Two living rooms are no longer enough. Now you need three, and throw a couple of “bonus rooms” on top of that. And of course, something in me wants that, too. It’s hard not to. I am not opposed to big houses at all. Go ahead, throw one my way.

But I still wonder. I mean, we had a family of six stay with us for a week and our house, which does NOT have three living rooms, absorbed them beautifully. Young children, I think, like closer quarters. Rachel loves travelling because we’re always cramped and having to share a room. It makes her feel safer to have us near.

When I was a visiting-student in Kyoto too many years ago to mention here, I spent most weekends with a Japanese family. They were upper-middle class. The father owned a Kimono business with his brother which they ran out of the front room of this family’s house. They owned two traditional houses connected to each other. But they…we…spent most evenings together in one small room, sitting around a table on the floor, with our legs hanging in a heated hole in the floor under the table, a blanket connecting the table to our laps kept the heat from escaping. We ate there, read there, watched the Seoul Olympics there (see it was looooong time ago–1988 if you’re curious). When the grandmother, Obaasan, was not quietly practicing hymns (Buddhist I think) for her singing group, she took naps there, snoring lightly with her head on the floor and her legs under the table while we worked or talked or did homework. It was lovely.

No really.

So I just wonder about our culture and myself really, and how I crave space…and that room where I can go and be alone, while my almost five year old, this shadow constantly by my side, seems to need me more than ever.

And I have to remind myself to turn around more often and look at her beautiful eyes….even if the house is a mess, and even if she insists on engaging in mind-numbing negotiating or whining.

Because one day, in that moment when everything is set and I am ready to turn to her, she may not be there. No shadow.

What a sad, idiot that would make me.