Letting Go of the Perfect Holiday

Tags

Acceptance, adoption, Christmas, expectations, families, gifts, Nostalgia

By: Emily Shirley

We have all seen the Folgers commercial where the big brother comes home from college and starts making coffee. As the coffee smell reaches upstairs, the family comes down to greet him. They are all smiles in the perfectly decorated home with this perfect holiday moment of love all around and… well, perfection.

In other Christmas commercials, the adult children with their perfect families drive up, all smiles and carrying gifts. The food somehow magically appeared without anyone shopping for days, standing on their feet preparing for hours, and stressing over.

I have been guilty of trying to have the holiday depicted in commercials. But I have decided to be honest with myself this year. Those commercials were made up by someone, and many people are doing what I used to do, pretending to have their own version of a ‘perfect Christmas’ because others tell them this is how this season and Christmas Day is supposed to be.

It’s media like the commercials that creates an unrealistic expectation for holiday perfection, that hijacks the moments we could be having with others, or even spending the day alone. And it is this kind of emotional feed that makes us think we have fallen short if our Christmas doesn’t look like the commercials. We get upset with our adult children for not being what the commercials have told us they should be. And what about those people whose lives have changed, and they no longer fit the mold of the families in the commercials. What about the single parents, or those that have lost their spouse, or even children, due to death.

Many older parents are feeling left out of their adult children’s lives at this time of the year. Perhaps these adult children are behaving in ways the parents don’t understand. This can happen when we have certain unrealistic expectations that are not met by someone else. The more likely explanation for their not involving their parents more than they do is that they are working very hard to have their own version of a ‘perfect’ holiday.

We think of Christmas as the season dedicated to everything merry and bright. But let’s face it. Sometimes, it can also be one of the most stressful times of the year. Most of us want a little holiday magic, whether it’s conscious or unconscious. What if the magic happens in the simple moments that we often miss because of our heightened expectations causing this to be a stressful time of the year?  One of the first things we can do is admit that Christmas will never be perfect, or like any of the commercials. They never have been, and they never will be.

We can give ourselves credit for all those “almost-perfect” Christmases that we provided for our children, and others. Now, we can enjoy seeing others having whatever version of Christmas they want for themselves, while we enjoy our own version of this holiday. We can stay home, relax, and simplify things. If decorating is too much to do every year, we can even consider taking a year or two off and just decorating every three or four years, if ever. There are no Christmas police!

The real gift we have at this stage in our life is experience that allows us to step back and accept how things are. We can relax and be grateful for what we have and think about those ‘Christmases past’ that we survived. Rather than stressing over what we must do, we can be grateful for what we don’t have to do. We should all remember the real reason-for-the-season, and beyond that, this day can be focused on young children. It is nice to be able to take it easy. We can even meet up with friends and go to a nice restaurant for dinner, and walk away from the table and not have to clean up after ourselves.

Our gift to ourselves should be to get through the next few weeks without guilt for not participating in this season the same way others are. We can let go of some of the unrealistic ‘magical thinking’ of the past. It is time to adjust our expectations and embrace our own imperfect holiday. We can practice self-care through the holidays by carving out time each day to do whatever reconnects us with ourselves. This is especially important if we are alone this time of the year. 

The magic is there. We must be willing to look for it. We can do our version of this holiday season, based on the season of our lives. The part of the Folgers commercial we should consider is relaxing with a nice cup of hot coffee, Folgers or otherwise, and breathing in that coffee smell, while we munch on store-bought cookies that someone else made. 

About Today’s Guest Contributor:

World traveler and master gardener Emily Shirley is a part time resident of Louisiana and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Writing all the while, she divides her time between two homes. Past careers include Social Services Case Worker and Director and Human Resource Manager. She is currently at work on a memoir titled And Then There Were Ten.

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on the writing, hiking and the outdoors, Santa Fe life, and the world as seen through adoption-colored glasses. Check out her newest novel The Hand of Ganesh. Follow adoptees Clara Jordan and Dottie Benet in their  quest to find Dottie’s birthparents. Order today from Amazon or www.pocolpress.com. And thanks for reading!

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Reading the Nights Away

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Adoption recovery, Dealing with Adoption, writing

There is no friend as loyal a book.
— Ernest Hemingway

Outside of a dog, there’s no friend like a book.
Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.
— Groucho Marx

Winter days are short and the evenings long. Here in the high desert country of New Mexico, it’s bitterly cold. Snow is predicted, temperatures below twenty degrees. The weather tells me to relax by the fire with a cup of tea and a good book. I’ve neglected a multitude of quotidian household chores to delve into some waiting volumes. Lately, I’ve decided that chores can wait. Below, a few books that turned me into a couch potato.

Taking Flight with Luanne Castle

Luanne Castle’s newest poetry collection is titled Rooted and Winged. I was thrilled to receive this book in the mail, as I’d long anticipated its publication. A thoroughly rewarding read: Many gems embedded in this slim volume! Castle’s view of the world touched and inspired me. I relished her metaphors and descriptions, along with insights that seem to rise from her innermost being. With keen eyes and incisive commentary, she travels from her past, to possible futures, from interiors to the wilds of nature.

In “Tuesday Afternoon at Magpie’s Grill,” Castle writes “No matter what I notice, no matter what I record, I will never capture the ease of wind-filled wings, tail feathers a translucent backlit fan…” Actually, the poet accomplishes what she says she cannot, capturing the ease of wings. With grace and clarity, she creates such lines as “I’m trying, really trying hard to form a meditation on plants…My rosemary bush might do the trick, with its strong scent and evergreen resilience.”

Being There with Tommy Orange

Returning to Santa Fe Indian School after thirty-five years, I sat expectantly in the audience. We waited for the appearance of Tommy Orange. As we sat in the packed auditorium, I reminisced. In the late 1980s, I had been a language arts teacher at this school. I’d mentored ninth graders and juniors from New Mexico’s eight northern pueblos. My 2017 novel, All the Wrong Places, was set in a fictitious school based on Santa Fe Indian School. Having read Orange’s debut novel as part of a community read sponsored by our local library, I was eager to hear what this Arapahoe and Cheyenne author would say. Two easy chairs were soon occupied by Orange and Antonia Gonzales, a Native American radio commentator/interviewer. Orange told about his discovery of books and reading, well after his formal education ended. He worked in a bookstore, an experience that triggered a reading and writing breakthrough.

There There, Orange’s debut novel, depicts 12 young Native Americans all going to attend the Big Oakland Powwow. The backstories of these attendees are related, most in first person narratives. There are many interconnections, which also come to light. All arrive at the Big Oakland PowWow. The robbery of a large bag of gift cards is planned. Events spiral out of control, and most of the young people are killed. The stories themselves and the tragic finale stayed with this bibliophile a long time. Sad, haunting, and well worth the read.

Camping out with Nancy DeYoung

The Girl in the Tent ~ Memoir from the Road lives up to its title. Especially to fans of Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland, this is a terrific read. Inspired by her lifetime love of tenting and a desire to see the country, DeYoung embarked on nine months of a nomadic life. The author invites the reader along. She chronicles her adventures in a friendly style, including details and humor. Her chapters are illustrated with photos and drawings. I found the Route 66 experiences particularly fascinating: roadside signs and the importance of the route during dustbowl days from the 1930s. Her takeaway: “Get your kicks on Route 66.”

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on the writing, hiking and the outdoors, Santa Fe life, and the world as seen through adoption-colored glasses. Check out her newest novel The Hand of Ganesh. Follow adoptees Clara Jordan and Dottie Benet in their  quest to find Dottie’s birthparents. Order today from Amazon or www.pocolpress.com. And thanks for reading!

Ruminations and Rumi

Tags

adoption, Adoption recovery, Attitude adjustment, Houses, Moving, Perspective, Purging

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. I’ve been increasingly aware of my own growing acceptance of the old issues and my continuing transcendence, rising above old ways of thinking. Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” describes my emotions perfectly. My aim is to be welcoming to all feelings. Easier said than done, but if I succeeds, I will have accomplished a lot. The adoptee’s journey is about being at home in ones own skin.

Although he wrote seven centuries ago, the Persian poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic Rumi provided insights that serve us well today. The “guests” are emotions and thoughts to which one awakens each morning. Rumi advises welcoming them all rather than disdaining some as unwelcome pests and others as “right” and correct. It is true that we enjoy those guests that empower, buoy us up, and make us feel successful, capable, happy. But as I’ve traveled the adoptee’s road to discovering who I really am, I’ve found that we need to accept all the feelings and learn to live with them.

The emotions that appear in our personal guest houses can, after all, serve as guides from beyond.

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes  as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. ~ Jelaluddin Rumi

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on the writing, hiking and the outdoors, Santa Fe life, and the world as seen through adoption-colored glasses. Check out her newest novel The Hand of Ganesh. Follow adoptees Clara Jordan and Dottie Benet in their  quest to find Dottie’s birthparents. Order today from Amazon or http://www.pocolpress.com. And thanks for reading.

Adopting Autumn

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Autumn, Gleaning, Harvest, Hiking, John Keats, Reaping, Ripeness, Seasons

Sometimes we grow so busy, we forget to enjoy the changing of seasons. Yesterday, as I walked the arroyo near my house, I received a wakeup call. Crisp air, trees nearly bare, dazzling blue sky. On the arroyo floor, a previous hiker had left a message in the sand. It spoke directly to me, a reminder to cherish Autumn.

To Autumn
John Keats

(1795-1821)

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

************************************************

Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and life. Your comments are invited. November is National Adoption Awareness Month, and submissions are being taken for guest blogs on all aspects of adoption. Length no more than 500 words, photos accepted, short bio needed. Send queries to elaine.coleman2013@gmail.com

Decades of diaries became my memoir, The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries

Guatemala Gift: Part Two

Tags

adoption, child adoptee, family, Gay dads, Guatemala, international adoption, successful adoption, transracial adoption, two dads

CHAPTER TWO-by Kim Straus

Jose steps into his new life

Remember my saying that we as older soon-to-be dads were not prepared to take on the special needs of a special needs child?  And don’t get me wrong, I’m in awe of those parents who do and I’ve met adoptive parents who have raised multiple special needs children.  Well, we quickly learned of José’s special need.

José arrived in New Mexico sound asleep in his umbrella stroller.  He and Jack were met at the airport by me, Jack’s Albuquerque cousins, and our good friend and my boss, who would later become José’s godmother.  One of the reasons we felt so confident in becoming parents was the support network we had in Santa Fe.  As we went through the adoption process we met other adoption families, including several gay dads, with whom we formed a small support group.  We felt Santa Fe would be a great place to be gay parents and had read a statistic that Santa Fe had the second largest per capita number of lesbian and gay parents in the nation after San Francisco.

Not only did we get support from other gay dads and lesbian moms but also many straight friends, including a number of close women friends.  One of Jack’s former colleagues from his time teaching at Zuni Pueblo lived with us for a year before she bought a home down the street.  We still belong to an adoption group that consists of straight and gay families – and several Guatemalan children.

One recommendation we received from parents who had adopted internationally was of a pediatrician in town who understood health issues that might arise in these children.

We took José to see her a few days after his arrival for a good check-up which proved extremely, I mean extremely, fortunate.  She ordered a blood test and when she received the results, called us immediately.

José had hypothyroidism.  Basically, José’s thyroid wasn’t working at all.  This explained his small size and lack at seven months of some basic early motor skills. It may also explain why our adoption process went so quickly.  We speculate that the doctor seeing José for his check-ups in Guatemala either knew or suspected something like the hypothyroid condition and urged the process move quickly.

All babies born in this country get checked for this and perhaps those up for adoption in Guatemala do, too, but the diagnosis isn’t revealed for fear it would jeopardize the adoption. Most adopting parents want a perfect baby unless they specifically request a special needs child.

Our doctor said run, don’t walk to the pharmacy for medication which José takes daily and will probably for the rest of his life.  Our wonderful pediatrician also connected us with an amazing pediatric endocrinologist in Albuquerque; we all love our visits with her.  José’s development is on the normal scale although as a Guatemalan Mayan, he will never likely be very tall.

I won’t deny that becoming a parent later in life is a real challenge.  You get set in your ways, used to your routines, thinking about a future that never before included diapers, play dates, baseball practice, science fair projects, and PTA.  I admit that tucked way back in my brain was a bit of resentment about such drastic change in lifestyle.  But all this was greatly overshadowed by the joys that happened every day, some of these I think of as miraculous and magical.  When José would fall asleep in my arms as a baby, reading bedtime stories and singing songs, and, yes, going to baseball games.

José attended a pre-school in our neighborhood and every morning I would pull him to school in a wooden wagon made in the Wisconsin town where my mother, who turned 100 last year, was born.  The miracles and joys still happen and I am still amazed at being a parent.

José is thriving, as best we can tell, and so are we.  We are having unimagined

Jose says “Two Dads are better than one!”

adventures.  Last year we took José to Disneyland and I did something I swore I’d never to do again  — went on not one but several rollercoaster rides. What we won’t do for our kids!

One last adoption story for now, at least:  When we were going through the process, one of the forms for Guatemala Jack had to submit and get certified by the New Mexico Secretary of State was a doctor’s statement that he was “in good health and showed no signs of homosexuality.” 

Jack’s own doctor requested that he not have to do it, so I asked my doctor if he would sign the statement, to which he agreed.  My doctor was not only a hero in the gay community for his early treatment of people with HIV/AIDS but was soon to retire.  He was not worried about any ramifications.  Besides, the statement read, “shows no signs” and since Jack was not his patient, my doctor could truthfully say after an examination that Jack was in good health and ‘showed no signs.’  As Jack sat in the waiting room for the appointment, he casually picked up People magazine. Then he realized that might be a sign, and quickly picked up Sports Illustrated.

Warmest hugs to all you adoptive and adopting parents from two very lucky dads.

Guatemala Gift

Tags

adoption, family, Gay dads, Guatemala, international adoption

Guest Post: Kim and Jack adopt José Toxpop

CHAPTER ONE – by Kim Straus

Our adoption story may be like many others experienced by two gay men, but then every story is different.  Ours began in 2004, the year José was born.

It was early February.  I had just finished reading the book, Gay Dads.  My dentist, his partner, and their two sons were featured in a chapter.  As I closed the book that evening I turned to Jack and said, “We could do this.”  Well, the next day, Jack was on the internet looking up gay adoption.  When I made that comment I had no idea of the depth of Jack’s feeling about wanting to be a father, about wanting to start a family.  While we’re both from big families, his is very close; mine is not. He had far better role models for parents than I did; I likely always feared being the inept parents mine were.

And, you see, most gay men of our generation grew up thinking that we’d never be fathers.  For us adoption was still a relatively new and uncommon idea.  And when we did hear of gay adoption, it was often a news story involving discriminatory state laws and hateful attitudes.

Nevertheless, despite a few reservations, we plunged into the process of endless forms, background checks, home studies, parenting classes, affidavits, etc.  One of the first decisions we made was that we would do an international adoption.  We knew others who had made this choice and we felt it would be safer.  We’d heard those stories of domestic adoptions that had been reversed by distant relatives of the child.  And, sadly, we knew that there was the chance that a child put up for adoption in this country could have fetal alcohol syndrome.  Jack and I are not spring chickens – he was turning forty and I was fifty-one.  We did not feel we could truly handle a special needs child.  But then all children have special needs.  As it turned out, ours did, but it was something we could handle.

We connected with an adoption agency here in New Mexico that prided itself in helping gay people adopt (the same agency my dentist and his partner used) and we soon learned that New Mexico has one of the best records for gay adoption in the nation.  We examined the countries that would allow a single man to adopt a child  – no countries that I know of allow a gay couple to adopt.  Our choices were somewhat limited.  Fortunately, one of our best choices was Guatemala.  Jack had spent two years in the Peace Corps there.  He knew the people, customs, places and Spanish.  His Mayan dialects were rudimentary.  Because this was to be a single parent adoption at first, it was logical for Jack to be the adopting parent.  As far as Guatemala knew, I didn’t exist; or if they knew about me, it was that I happened to be another man living in the same house.  We didn’t have to hide our relationship in this country.

In August we received photos and a video of a small plump Kekchi Mayan boy named José Felipe Tox Pop from the Cobán region.  He was three months old and living with a foster mother in Guatemala City.  Jack and I were asked, would you like this boy to be your son?  How could we say no!

From there the process became one of Guatemalan courts and lots of money.  We began hearing stories of adoptions that dragged on for months so we figured it would be the following May at the least before we could dream of bringing our son home.

However, in November, nine months after conceiving this idea, we got the call from the agency that José was ready for us (Jack) to come get him.  Wait, we’re not ready!   Jack’s a teacher and wanted to finish out the semester.  And we’d just bought tickets to spend the holidays in Guatemala.  So we asked if Jack could pick him up at the beginning of January and the two of us spent ten days beforehand seeing the country Jack had told me so much about.  I returned to Santa Fe the day before Jack was to meet our son. We thought it best for me not to be there and, after all,  I had to assemble the crib.

I’ve heard Jack’s recollections many times of that moment when José was put in

Family life is a win/win situation

arms for the first time.  Scary, exhilarating.  But this man is lucky.  Who should be at the Marriott Hotel in Guatemala City where most of the adopting families stay but a woman he knew who had served in the Peace Corps a year ahead of Jack’s group.  She was there visiting the child she was adopting; she helped with that first diaper change and gave sound advice on bottle feeding and getting José asleep that first night.  As it turned out, José preferred sleeping in the umbrella stroller we had brought with us.

Two days later Jose and Jack were on a plane bound for home.  After a stay-over in Miami they arrived in Albuquerque on January 7, 2005.   One exhausting journey was over; another joyful one was just beginning.

The Words of Mother and Dad

Tags

adoptee, adoption, aging, Charlottesville, Dad, Diaries, Letters, Memory, Mortality, Sunset, Virginia, Wisdom, World War II

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

Note to readers: Before Richard and Reva Beard adopted me, the bond between them intensified. With each year of courtship, marriage and — most of all — through their World War II separation, they imagined the family they would build. The war made that dream even stronger. Though separated by 6,000 miles and 18 months, they corresponded every day. The letters were relegated to a file case in my parents retirement home. After Dad passed away, I asked my brother to send me the entire collection. Daddy had meant to write a book about his India experiences, but life got in the way. I inherited the thousands of handwritten epistles, quit my day job to read every one, and turned the best of them them into a book: From Calcutta with Love- The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. (Texas Tech University Press, 2002) The original missives were archived at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. In 2002, the Texas publisher gave me back the rights. Last year Pajarito Press in Los Alamos, New Mexico acquired them. I’m happy to announce that, eighty years after they were first written by mom and dad, the letters are again being presented to the world.

Richard and Reva, I’d like to believe, would be proud to share their words with the world.

If I could speak to Richard today,  I’d remind him of a certain conversation. 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 agemy 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.

Join Elaine Pinkerton on alternate Mondays for reflections on the life through adoption colored glasses, hiking, reading books, and writing. The Hand of Ganesh, slated for mid-April publication, can be pre-ordered from Pocol Press. (Pull down the Books tab at the top of this page). Stay tuned for a publication date for From Calcutta with Love. Thanks so much for reading; Your comments and questions are  invited.

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My roads led to India…

Tags

adoption, Adventure, healing, India, New novel

My latest novel, published by Pocol Press, debuts next month. The Hand of Ganesh will be available through the publisher, ordering from your favorite bookstore, and on Amazon. It seems that elephant god Ganesh helped me overcome obstacles as I sought to tell this story, one of adoption, travel, and women’s friendship. Turn back the clock: As I was growing up, my father filled my imagination with visions of India. Richard Beard was a veteran of WWII who’d been stationed in Calcutta as a clinical psychologist for the Army Airforce. After he passed away, I compiled his wartime letters into a book titled From Calcutta with Love – The WWII Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. (Texas Tech University Press, 2002). All my life, I’d wanted to write fiction, and with the publication of Beast of Bengal (Pocol Press, 2005), that dream became a reality. Beast of Bengal is a suspenseful tale set in the China-Burma-India theater of WWII. After visiting Southern India in 2013, I had another story to tell. I recruited Clara Jordan, the somewhat autobiographical heroine of All the Wrong Places (Pocol Press, 2017) to join a new character, Arundati Benet, and took both women to Tamil Nadu and Mahabalipuram, an ancient temple complex. My newest novel spans generations and tells of friendship and bonding. It also presents a rich tapestry of India, as seen through American eyes.

Ganesh is the said to swallow the sorrows of the Universe and protect the world.

Here’s a summary of The Hand of Ganesh:

A young girl, barely alive, washes up on a beach near the Indian ruins of Mahabalipuram. Thus begins a journey of discovery for Richard and Rita Benet accompanied by an artifact of the elephant God Ganesh. Equal parts self-actualization, travelogue, and mystery/adventure story, The Hand of Ganesh dives deep into several American protagonists’ curiosities about India. As the multi-generational story progresses, two young women remain obsessed with finding their birthmothers; one from Santa Fe, New Mexico and the other born in India itself. The pair are compelled to travel to the Subcontinent. Amidst the backdrop of the world’s largest gathering of humanity, the Kumbha Mela, Clara and Arundati embrace their moment and decide together how to process their respective beginnings.

As publication draws nearer, stay tuned for updates. The Hand of Ganesh can be pre-ordered by going to http://www.pocolpress.com.

Poetry Monday in the Snow

Tags

adoptee, adoption, outdoors, Robert Frost, snowshoeing

Winter at Last! Here in the parched Southwest, we welcome any moisture that falls. After a dry January, Nature rewarded us with a snowstorm: two feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Last Saturday, three friends and I went snowshoeing in the Santa Fe National Forest. In puffy billows, fresh-fallen powder surrounded us. Tall pines, festooned in white, towered overhead. The morning sky was a deep, dazzling blue. The sun shone brilliantly, the light and shadows dappling the terrain. We made our way up and down hills from the Winsor to the Rio En Medio trails, talking intermittently but also listening to the silence. No one else around. Suddenly I remembered the following poem and recalled meeting the poet. I recited Robert Frost’ masterpiece from memory, inspiring others to quote from poems from their pasts. It was a magical morning.

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The Winsor Trail is one of the most popular in the Santa Fe area, but on this day we had it to ourselves!

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

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Join Elaine for weekly blogs about the writing life, hiking and seeing the world through adoption-colored glasses. Her newest novel, The Hand of Ganesh, a tale of two women traveling through India, focuses on adoption and adventure. It will be available in March — through Amazon, Pocol Press or your local bookstore. Questions and comments welcome!

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 (son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren) leaves for work and school every weekday at 7 a.m., so on this overcast late Autumn morning, I embark on a two-hour walk to 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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