The Words of my Father

Tags

adoptee, adoption, aging, Charlottesville, Dad, Diaries, Memory, Mortality, Sunset, Virginia, Wisdom

Note to my readers: I grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and this post was inspired by memories of my late adoptive Dad, a professor at the University of Virginia. Like many others, I’m shocked and saddened by recent events in Charlottesville, and I re-publish this reflection in a spirit of compassion.

 

Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal

Today I’d like to share my memory of the last lucid conversation I had with my adoptive Dad. Richard Leonard Beard was a World War II clinical psychologist for the

I’ve kept a journal all my life. It’s enlightening to read voices from the past…

army air force, college professor, and most of all—my hero and role model. I lost him years ago, in the nineties, but lately he has been vividly in my imagination. When going through some of my old diaries, I found this entry:

 My father and I were walking around the gentle hills of Charlottesville, Virginia. I’d left Virginia for New Mexico, embarking on my own life, but I visited at least once or twice a year. He and my mother had moved to a senior community named “Stonehenge.” I found the title amusing, thinking it conjured up the wisdom of the ages. On this particular evening, I was out walking with the wisest man I knew.
    The sun was setting and mist arose from the earth. Instead of a blazing sunset like those I experienced in New Mexico, this “sky-scape” was layered in subtle pastels…pink, peach and gray.
    Though I don’t recall my exact words, I told my father that when I was 70, his age at the time, I wouldn’t mind dying. I would, I told him, be ready to leave the earth.
    “You’ll feel differently when you’re there,” he retorted. “You’ll want more years ahead of you. Many more years.” I wanted to disagree, but I knew that argument was futile. Daddy was strong minded.
    Life happened. Marriage, children, divorce, grandchildren. Suddenly I was the age

Ahead of his time, my college professor Dad spearheaded a book TV program in the1950s

my father was when he made his pronouncement.
    He’d left years earlier, but I felt that at some mysterious psychic level, he could hear and understand me. “You were right,” I longed to tell him.

 

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Adopting Canyon Road

Tags

Adolph Bandelier, adoption, book signing, Canyon Road, Catenary Gallery, Rumi Vesselinova, Santa Fe, Scott Swezy

Santa Fe, New Mexico is my home town. Born in Massachusetts and raised in Virginia and North Carolina, I’ve spent most of my life in “The City Different.” I’ve adopted Santa Fe, and especially Canyon Road, the “Arts and Crafts” road of old Santa Fe.

I’m fascinated by Canyon Road’s history…
Turn back the clock to the 1920s, when Canyon Road was one of Santa Fe’s main thoroughfares. Los Cincos Pintores (The Five Painters) moved here from the east and banded together in this neighborhood to paint and promote their work. Every since, the road has maintained its artistic character.
There’s a lot to take in on Canyon Road: art galleries, antique shops, framers, restaurants, sculpture gardens, and stores specializing in opals, gold and silver jewelry, leather, and a variety of crafts. There, you’ll find Project Tibet, an organization that helps Tibetan refugees. Set back from the road, it includes a fascinating collection of wind sculptures and water installations.
My history with Canyon Road goes back to working in the early 1980s as administrative assistant for The Historic Santa Fe Foundation. The Foundation is located in El Zaguan (a zaguan is a long covered passageway or corridor). The building dates to the 1700s. Before its present life as the Foundation headquarters (and small rental apartments), the rambling former hacienda served as a home, a general store, and a private girls’ school. Along the street side of this remarkable adobe building is a lime green picket fence. Inside are gardens planted by pioneer archaeologist Adolph Bandolier. For the Foundation, I served as secretary, newsletter editor, and landlady.
Fast forward to the mid-1980s. when I decided that Santa Fe needed a walking guide. Canyon Road was one of the first parts of the city for on-foot research.

Santa Fe on Foot-Exploring the City Different first came out in 1986 and has gone through five editions. In retrospect, I realize that walking Canyon Road inspired its creation.
These days, along with my good friend Kay, I walk Canyon Road every Thursday morning. We admire the latest paintings and sculptures, viewed through gallery windows. We breathe in the fresh morning air and marvel at the light at this early hour. Some of Santa Fe’s largest trees and loveliest gardens are behind the adobe walls, the Sangre de Cristo mountains loom against the eastern horizon, lights and shadows play along this historic street.
One of my favorite Canyon Road locales is Catenary Gallery. It’s tucked away in a little side street on this historic road. In addition to the work of Rumi Vesselinova, the gallery displays the paintings of Scott Swezy. His painting, “Black Mist” was chosen as the cover for my book All the Wrong Places, a suspense novel set just outside Santa Fe at a fictitious Native American academy. (Pocol Press, 2017). Both Scott and I will be at the gallery this Friday, for a combination art exhibit (new works by Swezy) and book signing. You are invited!

 

Artist’s Reception & Book Signing
Celebrating a new book by Elaine Pinkerton Coleman
All the Wrong Places

Please join us Friday, August 11, 2017 | 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Catenary Art Gallery | 616 1/2 Canyon Road | Santa Fe, NM 87501

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Join Elaine every other Monday for insights on adoption and life.

Adopting a “Home Away from Home”

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Authors, Bellydancing, Farmers Market, Maxine Davenport, New Mexico Book Association, nonfiction, Novels, Santa Fe NM, writing

My town, Santa Fe, New Mexico, has a great Farmers Market, and, because of Maxine Davenport, retired attorney-turned-mystery writer, other local authors and I are now part of it. We comprise HOMEGROWN AUTHORS. The New Mexico Book Association sponsors us. Interested authors (who must be part of the New Mexico Book Association) apply two weeks ahead of time to be at the tables. HOMEGROWN AUTHORS is at the market Tuesday mornings from 7 a.m. till 1 p.m. and Wednesday afternoon from 3 till 7 p.m.. We greet locals and visitors, the latter hailing from all over the world. On a good day, we sell lots of our books.

Maxine, in her website http://www.davenportstories.com, tells how “Homegrown Authors” got started…
This will be the fifth year that Homegrown Authors has appeared at Farmers Market. In 2012, Rosemary Zibart and I were discussing the need for outlets where local authors could sell their books. Some bookstores had ceased selling self-published books, particularly if they were connected to Amazon. Rosemary suggested that we investigate the possibility of selling at the Santa Fe Farmers Market. Actually, she suggested that I do that research, and the result, after a meeting with the Farmers Market Board, was that we were allowed to set up a table. We tried the Saturday venue and discovered that Saturday buyers knew exactly what they had come for and were less interested in shopping for books. The noise made it impossible to converse with visitors. On Tuesdays there are many tourists, and local shoppers are more interested in stopping by for a chat.

While we remain independent, the New Mexico Book Association agreed to act as sponsor. We have seen an increase in book sales despite a decrease in member participation. Some authors find that they aren’t cut out to be booksellers and others love it. We’ve never had trouble filling our chairs.

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Last Wednesday brought exotic music and a talented troupe of dancers.

The Wednesday market often features entertainment. Last week, we were entertained by a belly dancing troupe, the week before that, by “Wise Fools” and a children’s play. Speaking of children, they love playing in the market’s indoor area. Plenty of room for them to race about without being in anyone’s way. Homegrown Authors has a resident children’s author, Sandi Wright, whose book Santa Fe Sam delights children of all ages.

If you’re in Santa Fe, be sure to come visit us at the Market. We feature discounts, write inscriptions to order and are always happy to talk about the craft of writing. The beauty of the venue? In addition to being surrounded by a cornucopia of locally grown fruit and vegetables, the wonderful opportunity to meet our readers.

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Join Elaine on Mondays for blog posts on adoption, hiking, travel, and the writing life. It’s all grist for the mill! If you have an adoption-related post in mind, send me a message: I welcome guest bloggers.

 

Blue Monday or Serenity in San Diego

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Getting away, healing, Relaxation, San Diego, Travel

The road going nowhere in particular

 

 

“Wherever you go, you take yourself with you” goes the saying. After arriving for a short vacation in one of my favorite cities, San Diego, I was therefore not surprised that “Edgar” had brought himself along for the ride. He, or “it” if you prefer, had packed himself in the depths of my ginormous suitcase, amongst the slacks, tops, electronics, books, walking shoes and books. Egad, can’t I go anywhere to escape from that demon?
To understand Edgar, you need to know that I am a “recovering” adoptee. My original mother relinquished me when I was five. Even though I grew up with wonderful adoptive parents, I’ve struggled for years to come to terms with being adopted. I wish I could announce in a loud voice that I’ve succeeded in getting over my adoption issues. The best I can offer, however, is to say confidently that I am making progress.
This change of scene, however, has been more beneficial than weeks of therapy. San Diego’s magic begins to take effect the moment I arrive. The adjectives that come to mind: salubrious, sensational, scenic. Add to that another ingredient: simplicity. There is something quite wonderful about running away from home. Life can be pared down to an easier pace.
My host family goes to work or school every weekday at 7 a.m., so on this slightly overcast Spring morning, I leave for a two-hour walk to and from a nearby coffee shop. I’ve been visiting this San Diego neighborhood for the better part of the last decade and traveling the same route, to the java cafe. First it was “It’s a Grind,” which went out of business. Then it became “Sweetest Buzz.” But this time, there is no coffee shop. Where the “Buzz” should have been loomed a completely empty retail space. A “For Lease” sign was taped on the window. A sad, empty storefront occupied the place I’d spent memorable hours composing on my laptop and sipping lattes.
Had the expedition fallen flat, or was there something else awaiting me? Instead of going home right away, I decide to check out the park near my host family’s house. Walking a couple miles back to the neighborhood, I sit and enjoy a serenade of songbirds, the ambiance of healthy young trees, a verdant carpet of green grass.
The park itself is a marvel. When I first saw it years ago, it looked unpromising, even hopeless. Today, the community outdoor space is filled with children swinging, sliding, digging in the sandbox. Parents visit with one another. Laughter from a toss ball game sounds across the field. An elderly man is marching along the sidewalk, stopping at each circuit workout to do pushups or pullups or a balance beam.
The day isn’t complete, however, until I take a hike on the nearby former dairy road. It’s a road I’ve walked before. One of the city’s many walking paths, it branches off from a busy thoroughfare and loops back into a small canyon. Thistle, purple flowers, and feathery plumed bushes brighten a brown and sage terrain. Ahead of me, a large bird, strutting in a quail-like fashion, walks across my path. Other than it, I am alone. The sun intensifies, but just in time a gentle breeze picks up.
Of course, being a grandmother/writer and retired from a regular career means that life should be simpler anyway. That’s not how it works, however. When I’m at home, a million projects shout out: “clean me,” “organize me,” “declutter me.” Right here, in sunny, wonderful San Diego, the only thing I have to declutter is my mind. Accepting victory, I acknowledge that I’ve once again I dueled the evil Edgar. On this gloriously sunny Monday, mine is the victory.

The author is reminded that “Not all who wander are lost”

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In Pursuit of Roots

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, celebrity adoption, diary about adoption, elaine pinkerton, family histor, family roots, family tree, friends, juniper tree, the goodbye baby, wounded, writing

Dear Readers: It happens every summer: I’m taking a “Blog-cation to work on The Hand of Ganesha, a sequel to All the Wrong Places. The protagonist of both novels is an adoptee, Clara Jordan. Enjoy this re-posting of thoughts originally published in 2012. The lack of “roots,” though I’ve come to grips with it, continues to be a challenge. If you’re an adoptee and have ever felt the need for a family tree, please send your feedback. Like other adoptees I’ve met, I’m still searching for the answers!

Last night I watched a program on public television that reminded me of being an adoptee. The emptiness and longing for a tribe of my own, a feeling I wrongly assumed I had put to rest, was back with a vengeance.

“Finding your Roots,” which featured three celebrities exploring their family trees, was all about searching to find a place where you belong, piecing together the past, and learning where and how your ancestors lived. The show was well presented and dramatized the interviewees’ journeys to discover their their true heritage.

My outsider status syndrome immediately kicked in. How fortunate, I thought, to even possess a genealogy that you could call your own. Growing up as an adoptee, I longed for years to claim a so-called “family tree.” I’d been to Italy with my birthfather Giovanni Cecchini. After our reunion, we travelled to Abruzzi, where he was born. I met my non-English-speaking cousins, aunts and uncles. Following the journey to Italy, my birthfather’s second wife (not my birthmother) helped me secure a detailed listing of paternal relatives.

With my adoptive mom’s help, I’d was able to chart out a family tree for my ancestry record, going back just a couple centuries. Those two charts were intellectual exercises, but I couldn’t relate to them.

Two family trees, but neither really fit who I was. Though I had the DNA of the biological parentage, I was shaped and molded by my adoptive parents. Rather than give in to an emotional meltdown, however, I thought long and hard about why the “Finding your Roots” program tried to break my heart. Tried but failed.

When I was young, I made up a myth about being adopted.The underlying theme was “Oh, poor me.” That was a way of reacting to everything, seemingly as fixed as the stars in the Big Dipper or the belt of the constellation Orion. However, I was not a fixed star and I could shape a new truth.

Juniper Tree. Everything, seemingly as fixed as the stars in the Big Dipper or the belt of the constellation Orion. However, I was not a fixed star and I could shape a new truth.

 

I decided to emulate the indomitable juniper tree. It will send roots down 25 feet in order to survive. Here’s a description from the National Park Service’s website:

“Junipers grow in some of the most inhospitable landscapes imaginable, thriving in an environment of baking heat, bone-chilling cold, intense sunlight, little water and fierce winds. Often they appear to grow straight out of solid rock.”

This is the kind of family tree that will serve me well.

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and life. Your feedback is invited!

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Adopting the Trails – “Take a Kid Hiking Day”

Tags

adoption, Children, Dale Ball Trails, Exercise, Fresh Air, Hiking, Nature, Walking

Earlier this spring, the publisher of Santa Fe on Foot-Exploring the City Different, Richard Polese, and I planned a walking with kids day. The City of Santa Fe liked the idea. Now, just before the official beginning of summer and a day before Father’s Day, it’s happening!

Santa Fe’s first official “Take a Kid Hiking Day” is this Saturday, June 17. Adults and youngsters are encouraged to get out of the house and walk together into a bit of local nature. Gathering begins at 8:30 am at the Sierra del Norte Trailhead, a short 2.5 mile drive up Hyde Park Road. Bottled water and snacks provided by local merchants. The planned hike is an easy 1.2 mile walk on trails through the forested wilderness. No heavy boots or packs needed, no cost, and reservations not required. The hike route will take about an hour. Come and enjoy nature together!   Information: 505-983-1412 or 505-629-5647

Excerpted from Chapter Eight of Santa Fe on Foot-Exploring the City Different

SIERRA DEL NORTE OUT AND BACK
Distance: 1.22 miles
Time: 45-60 minutes
The walking and bicycling paths of the Dale Ball system provide a gateway to the Santa Fe National Forest. Clearly marked with numbers, the Dale Ball trails interweave with other foot routes such as Dorothy Stewart, The Nature Conservancy Preserve, Dorothy Stewart, Atalaya, and Little Tesuque Trails. However, the 23.7-mile Dale Ball system are not just a gateway to the mountain forests, they are splendid in their own right.When I first began walking and hiking in Santa Fe, it also took a car with chains to get to the ski basin area for winter skiing or snowshoeing. In fact, the reason I wrote Santa Fe on Foot in the first place is because of the daunting nature of driving “to the top” in snow and ice.
Fast forward a few decades; enter retired banker Dale Ball, a man who grew up by the Oregon Trail and who envisioned nature trails that would not require fair weather and a 13-mile drive from Santa Fe. He wished for trails that would become an important part of the community and through ceaseless effort—collaborations and negotiations—he made that wish come true. Among others who helped create this hiking legacy were the City of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, the McCune Charitable Foundation, the anonymous donor who gave $100,000 for the undertaking, more than 50 volunteers who contributed in various ways, and, of course the Santa Feans who granted easements through their land. The anonymous donor of $100,000 insisted that the trail system be named after Dale Ball.
One of the most daunting challenges that must have faced Mr. Ball as he sought access through private land was convincing homeowners to allow public egress. The persuasiveness and diplomacy he employed must have been driven by his passion to serve the common good.
Completed in 2005, the trails are truly a gift that keeps on giving. They give locals and visitors alike a treasure trove of pleasant walking, miles of, beautiful swooping switchbacks, cameo views of the high desert plateaus stretching out toward Los Alamos and the Rio Grande Valley’s mountain ranges, panoramic lookouts that open up to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, quartz-studded rock formations, wildflowers in season, and easy access to pinon forests.
The general shape of today’s walk has led some people to call it the “lollipop trail,” but actually it is shaped more like a westward facing tree. It follows this series of juncture signs: from trails: #1 to #2 to #3, then a long stretch back to #1.
After securing your car, making sure to leave nothing at all of value inside, start at marker #1 and walk on a low path toward the left. When you reach the juncture sign #2, take a right. You’ll be gaining elevation fairly rapidly, but the path is flat and spacious.
Except for the right hand choice at your first encounter with juncture #2, the motto for this trail is to always keep left.
You will see another path midway between juncture sign #2 and #3, but do not take it. Stay to the left until you reach the sign announcing juncture #3. Keep to the left. Following this point, you will be on the main part of your walk. In another 15 minutes the path will be intersected with another walking option on the right. Ignore it and keep left. Except for the right hand choice at your first encounter with juncture #2, the motto for this trail is to always keep left.
On your way back you will again come to juncture #2. This will take you back to the parking lot and dog park. If you accidentally happen to end up coming out on Sierra Del Norte Road, the worst consequence is that you will need to turn left and walk back to the parking lot. Meandering about is allowed. As J.R.R. Tolkien famously said in The Hobbit, “all who wander are not lost.”

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Join Elaine every other Monday for a new post — reflections on being adopted, hiking, books, and the literary life. Comments are invited!

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Adopting Amelia Island

Tags

adoptee, adoptee restoration, adoption, All the Wrong Places, Amelia Island, Beaches, Fernandina Florida, parents, The Book Loft

It’s always fun to play on the beach!

Lucky to have stepmother Margaret in my life! (Birthfather’s widow)

Adoptees possess a multi-layered parentage. As one pundit observed, being adopted is “both a blessing and a curse.” My beloved adopted parents, Richard and Reva Beard, passed away in the 1990s; my birthparents shortly thereafter. But I am not without a parent. My birthfather’s second wife, his widow Margaret, has taken me under her wing. Over the years, she’s welcomed me into her Florida home. Today finds me in Fernandina, on beautiful Amelia Island, both visiting Margaret and doing an “east coast launch” of my new suspense novel All the Wrong Places.

“Launch” is the term I like to use for my upcoming book signing, but for me it’s the launching of much more. I hope to be spending part of every year in Fernandina Beach. Amelia Island is small (13 miles long), friendly, literary and enticingly beautiful. Its main town Fernandina, Florida is the perfect contrast to my high and dry hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Verdant. Bordered by pristine sandy beaches, it is literally an island paradise.

Now available!

In addition to a book signing I’m using my island sojourn for beach walking, reading and working on the next adventure of my All the Wrong Places protagonist Clara Jordan. If you’re in the area this weekend, please join me on Sunday for a 4 p.m. signing. at The Book Loft, tucked away at 214 Centre Street. I’d love to inscribe a copy of All the Wrong Places for you and chat about books and writing.

Adoption is still my “Something”

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, discover, empower, healing, separation, wounded

Note from Elaine: Five years after writing this post, originally published in 2012 – I’ve incorporated the theme of “adoption” in fiction. Clara Jordan, heroine of my new suspense novel All the Wrong Places, travels from Virginia to New Mexico hoping to locate an unknown birthmother. Instead of finding roots, she falls in love with Henry, who leads a double life and betrays her. She runs further into trouble as she searches petroglyphs for traces of a mother she’s never known. All the Wrong Places is available from http://www.pocolpress.com. I’ll give a reading at Collected Works Bookstore on May 15th, 6 p.m. in Santa Fe.

If you’re in Santa Fe, NM on Monday, May 15, 6 p.m. please join me and Santa Fe author Peggy vanHulsteyn for a reading and booksigning. It’s at Collected Works, 202 Galisteo, in downtown Santa Fe. (Peggy’s mystery-in-progress is titled The Art of Murder)

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It’s been said that trauma is not a mystery, that it attaches itself to you in a way that’s hard to undo. My story, as related in The Goodbye Baby, offers living proof. Being an adoptee has added melodrama to my life, created a passion for writing, and ultimately inspired me to take off the masks and to discover who I really am.

Though I was fortunate enough to land in an adoptive family who loved and cherished me, it could not make up for losing that first “mother connection.” My birth mother and I said goodbye before I started first grade, and I waited 38 years for her to come back into my life. I was deeply wounded by the separation.

My struggles have been with feeling abandoned, isolated, and rejected. I’ve worried for years that I will be misunderstood and that I’m simply not good enough- as a daughter, a friend, a partner, a mother, or even as a human being.

My son and I in Greece.

Because of being adopted, I felt small and insignificant. Probably because adoption wasn’t something my family discussed, my negative assumptions became deeply embedded. Throughout my adult years, I accomplished a great deal, but in my mind, I was never admirable. Harmful pangs of inadequacy took root and shaped my outlook, my decisions, my disastrous romantic choices.  Until I re-read my diaries, I never realized that I myself had invented the self-damaging myth.

How did I deal with my adoption-induced complexes? My adoptive parents had to raise a delinquent teenager who drank excessively, stayed out too late and attracted bad boyfriends. As I grew older, I tended to be an over-achiever: running nine marathons to lower my finishing time, yet always “keeping score” and endlessly coming up short.

Twenty-three years ago, when I first started to write about my adoption, the title of my book was Reunions. My plan was to meet both my biological parents and write about finding the missing puzzle pieces. I met my original parents, but the reunions were not what I hoped for.  The pieces were in place but the puzzle remained. Only writing The Goodbye Baby completed the picture.

What my adoption has taught me is that the world reflects my inner reality, that my happiness or unhappiness depend on my actions and not on outside forces. I’ve learned that it is never too late to make a fresh start.

I have always known I would be a writer. In the summer of 1962, I wrote in my diary,

“Some of this frantic recording is wasted energy. How can I have a future as a writer?…I need to find something to say.”

The theme of adoption is that “something.”

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Bopping around Barcelona

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Antoni Gaudi, Architecture, Art Noveau, Barcelona, Discovery, European travel, Mediterranean Odyssey, Viking Ocean Cruise

Every voyage is an exploration and every journey a discovery of the true self. -Kidore Hobbs

It’s no accident that “adoptee” and “authenticity” both start with “A.” As I’ve chronicled

The Goodbye Baby gives an insider view of growing up adopted.

in The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries, my way through a forest of adoptee-induced emotions is journaling. Another route is travel. As an adoptee who spent a lifetime searching for a sense of family and a “real” family tree, I go to unknown for self-understanding. As Martin Burber sagely remarked, “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

Europe calls me. My late birthfather Giovanni Cecchini was born in San Martino Sulla Marricina, Abruzzo, Italy, and my late birthmother was German. Two years ago, I explored eastern Germany. Recently, along with lifetime gal pal Jeri, I traveled by ship on a tour aptly titled Mediterranean Odyssey. Each day we disembarked to spend a day or two in a different city. The countries we docked at were Spain, France, Monaco,Italy, and Croatia. Italy, of course, was a top destination (more about Italy in a future post), but for years I’d dreamed of traveling to Barcelona, Spain and seeing the architecture of Antoni Gaudi.

This month that dream became a reality! Barcelona was the first stop of a 2 1/2 week-long Viking Ocean Cruise. Spain’s Catalonian capital is a visual feast. A great city brimming with history, wide boulevards, a magnificent L’Arc de Triumf, elegant buildings and a wonderful atmosphere. After hours in airplanes traveling from New Mexico to Spain, Jeri and I were eager to walk, and walk we did…

We strode the famous Las Ramblas – a mile-long leave pedestrian way. A wonderfully wide road, completely closed off from cars, the route drew us back several times during our Barcelona stay. Sidewalk cafes serving tapas provided lunches, each one tastier than the one before. A highlight was the extensive open air market, literally bursting with lane after lane of beautiful fruit, vegetables, meat, cheeses, baked specialties, flowers, spices and more.

The best of Barcelona, however, comprised the astonishing creations of Antoni Gaudi, the brilliant and endlessly creative nineteenth century architect. He produced wonders such as La Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Casa Batlló and La Predrera. Having always loved Art Nouveau, I resonated with Gaudi more than any other aspect of Barcelona. Herewith, Gaudi details that reveal the man’s genius.

Window of La Familia Sagrada Cathedral

“House of Bones”

Atrium, Casa Batlló

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Join author Elaine Pinkerton on alternate Mondays for posts about adoption and life. Your feedback is invited. Coming in May: her newest novel All the Wrong Places (Pocol Press).

Adoption Recovery 101

Tags

Acceptance, Adaptation, adoptee, adoption, labyrinth, Reflections, Sarah Ban Breathnach

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

…Nothing so wise as a circle. -Rilke

This morning’s labyrinth walk yielded reflections that I’d like to share with you…

With the publication of The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries, a memoir comprised of diary entries from the 1950s through 1980s, I began to heal from years of repressed anger and pain. I forgave the past and myself. I redirected my imagination. Instead of dwelling on all those invisible wounds (from being separated from my birthparents), I was able to focus on writing.

After The Goodbye Baby, I decided that I’d moved on. Producing a memoir was instructive and healing. Helpful as it was, however, it wasn’t enough. Or to put it more accurately, it didn’t last. The stress and instability of my first five years of life sometimes come back to haunt me.

Here’s my newest “rescue remedy,” a three-pronged remedy for adoption recovery.

ACCEPTANCE –
Realizing the difference between dreams and expectations. As Sarah Ban Breathnach recommends in Simple Abundance, I’m following her recommendation:
“You dream. Show up for work. Then let Spirit deliver your dream to the world.”

WALKING-
I do this daily and I reaffirmed this intention with creating a new edition of my             guidebook Santa Fe on Foot. (www.santafeonfoot.com)

READING-
Allowing time each day for books.
I spend time reading for edification, for entertainment, for information, and (sometimes) sheer escape.

We really do not know what’s in store for us. As Sarah Breathnach recommends, “…we’ll only find out once we start investing our emotions in authentic expression, and not in specific outcomes.” Don’t get caught up in the “delivery details.”

Keep your dreams even as you accept what IS. Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for adoption thoughts.