Adopting a Silent Spring

Tags

Adapting, adoptee, Covid-19, Novel-in-progress, outdoors, Solitude, Walking, writing

Is anyone else experiencing a distortion of time? Each day feels monumental and tomorrow seems totally unpredictable; one week ago feels like one month; the future feels foreshortened, like a blank wall just a few inches away.
— Joyce Carol Oates

We have entered the Pandemic Era of Covid-19.

Picacho Peak – Santa Fe, NM

Ms. Oates describes exactly how I’m feeling on this beautiful March afternoon. The world outside my window — the piñon, junipers, arroyo and labyrinth — looks the same. But, wait a minute. The world is completely different. All normal activities in my hometown have come to a screeching halt: cancelled, postponed, closed, finished. One of my hiking buddies has just come down with the virus. We were just together nine days ago. She’ll probably be fine, but it’s scary.

This morning at 9 a.m. I went for a walk. In 45 years of running, walking, and bicycling the same neighborhood, I have never seen it so deserted. Not a car on the roads, not a person in sight. Empty. This is a positive sign, I tell myself, as people are heeding the order to self-isolate. People are doing their part to “flatten the curve.” We must self-quarantine, not just for ourselves but for everyone.

When the going gets tough, the tough go hiking

That said, I’m finding newly available time to take walks, bike or hike; to tackle home projects that I’ve been putting off forever; to phone and catch up with friends from long ago; but above all, to move forward on The Hand of Ganesha, my novel-in-progress.

We’re adjusting to a “new normal.” It’s hard to remember what life used to be like before this strange juncture. I’ve gone from never having enough time to having nothing but time. This new paradigm, as author Joyce Carol Oates puts it, feels exactly “like a blank wall just a few inches away.” We must somehow fill in the blankness.

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Join Elaine for monthly posts on adoption and life.

Elaine Pinkerton has lived in Santa Fe since 1967. Join her for monthly blog posts Find her on Twitter: @TheGoodbyeBaby

Haiku Monday – Adopting the Seasons

Tags

Adapting, adoption, Blossoming, Cycles, haiku, Months, Rebirth, Seasons, Skyscapes, Time, Withering

Note from Elaine: My poet friend Roberta Fine loves Northern New Mexico’s landscape, weather, moods and terrain. Like me, she has lived in this part of the country for many decades. The drama of Southwestern landscape is captured in her exquisite word sketches. Enjoy this poetic retrospective of 2015.

2015 BEAUTY BEHIND ME

Sunless and socked in

by Roberta Fine

January
Clouds obscuring sky
Three grey days without a gleam
Faces growing glum.

February
Snowflakes hurrying
Falling fast as twilight falls
Fire popping, sizzling.

March
Yesterday’s whiteness
Warming into rich brown mud
Finch splashing puddle.

April
Apricot blossoms
Ahead of time, yet again
Meeting early death.

May
Twitter filled morning
Moist, soft air muffling bird talk.
Coffee scent drifting.

June
Fat English roses
Exhaling spicy perfume
Arching branches low.

Along with zinnas, sunflowers grace the late summer months.

July
Ragweed, tumbleweed
Stalking roadsides, lanes, gardens.
Rabbit chomps zinnias.

August
Roasted rose petals
Thirsting for the cool of cloud.
Zinnas flaunting red.

September
Summer lingering,
Apples dropping to the ground.
Nippy night begs fire.

October
Bluebirds gracing fence
Stopping for a feeding break.
Copper breasts match leaves.

November
Snow flowers blooming,
Clinging to long pine needles
Moist rug spot widens.

December
Full moon owning night —
Pearly light on festive crowd—
Church bells summoning.

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HAIKU–short poems that use words to capture a feeling or image of nature, beauty, or a particular sensory moment.. They are usually written as three lines: the first contains 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables, the third line 5 syllables.

Roberta Fine lives in Jacona, New Mexico and has been known to write a Haiku every day for entire years. In addition to writing poetry, she is a talented artist and creative cook. She can be reached at robertafine@centurylink.net

Dante and the “A Words” of Adoption

Tags

Accusation, Adapting, Adjusting, Admiring, adoptee, adoptee restoration, Alienation, Allowing, Anxiety, Ascending, Aspiring, Dante, The Divine Comedy

Along the journey of our life half way, I found myself again in a dark wood

Between Heaven and Hell, Dante illuminates the Adoption Journey

wherein the straight road no longer lay.
-Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Recently I took an intensive course on the famous Florentine epic poet and philosopher 
Dante. His Divine Comedy, published in the early 14th century as Commedia, is considered a masterpiece of world literature. Written in Italian, the poem tells—in first person—of Dante’s imaginary journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides Dante through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory, and finally to Paradiso.

Four days of total immersion in the world of Dante led to flights of fancy. As expert instructors took us through Dante’s journey—the circles of the Inferno, Purgatory and the levels of Paradiso—I found my mind wandering to the World of Adoption. Astonishingly, there are parallels!

Adoption” calls to mind so many words that begin with the letter “A,” some of which are devoutly to be wished for, some of which are to be avoided. As I mused, I realized that those A words correspond to the circles of the Inferno, the stages of Purgatory and the levels of Paradiso.

Let’s start in the INFERNO, at the bottom circle of the Adoption underworld. ACCUSATION is at the uttermost depth of hell. This applied to me. As long as I continued to blame my birthmother for not having it in herself to parent me and my brother, I was filled with ANGER. ALIENATION also belongs in Inferno, as it comes from feeling like a victim, feeling as though being adopted means something is wrong with you. After all, if you were OK, why didn’t your birth parents keep you? Also belonging to adoption hell is ANXIETY, the state of perpetual fear that you as an adoptee can never achieve the life that “normal” people enjoy as their birthright.

Skipping through PURGATORY (for now), let’s consider the A words of PARADISO. First

Decades of diaries became my memoir, The Goodbye Baby

is ALLOWING your history to be what it is and realizing that regrets about the past will forever keep you out of Paradiso. An important “A word” of Adoption is ADJUSTING….And finally there is ADAPTING.The latter two qualities lead to stress reduction and happiness.

Dante makes his way from the Inferno, through Purgatory, on to Paradiso. I’ve saved Purgatory (that limbo state between heaven and hell) for last. After all, I am striving, always working on adoption issues. The A words for this in-between state: ADMIRING, which is my attitude toward adoption pilgrims who’ve come to terms with whatever demons they must deal with; ASPIRING for that benign inner peace which I believe must come with self-knowledge and acceptance, and ASCENDING, which will go on for a lifetime. Purgatory, with its emphasis on an upward quest is not such a bad place to be. It involves ADMITTING that my life is a work in progress.

JOIN Elaine Pinkerton ON ALTERNATE MONDAYS FOR REFLECTIONS ON THE ROAD TO ADOPTION RECOVERY. Do you resonate with any “A” words of Adoption? Please comment!