Digging into Dickens

Tags

A Tale of Two Cities, adoptee, Birthdays, Book clubs, Charles Dickens, Gratitude

China tea, the scent of hyacinths, wood fires and bowls of violets—that is my mental picture of an agreeable February afternoon. — Constance Spry

Here we are at the beginning of a new month. In January I survived yet another birthday. A lady doesn’t reveal her age, so I won’t, but in the meantime, I’ve decided that the best gift I can give myself is gratitude.

Charles Dickens would have been 209 years old on February 7th

New Mexico has a governor who is applying strict measures for stopping the pandemic’s toll. She’s working hard to insure that those who want the Covid-19 vaccine can get it. I was lucky enough to receive my first injection; in six days I’ll receive the second. This non-opening of businesses is hard. It means no eating out (except for frigid picnics), no going to movies or musical events, and missing all the festivals, markets and celebrations that make Santa Fe  the unique town that it is. To celebrate my birthday, friends and I went not to lunch but to the forest for snowshoeing.

In addition to being grateful for daily doses of outdoors, I’m thankful for books. The new order of things has allowed us bibliophiles more time to read. I belong to an excellent book club.The members are adventurous in their literary choices, and it’s been fun reading books that, on my own, I might never have discovered. I’m a lifetime fan of Victorian literature, especially Charles Dickens. When it was my turn to select, I proposed A Tale of Two Cities. To my relief, everyone seemed to love reading (or in most cases re-reading) the dramatic story of Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette and her father the doctor, Jerry Cruncher, Miss Pross and Jarvis Lorry.. The backdrop of the French Revolution and scheming Madame Defarge, the storming of the Bastille, and Sydney Carton’s heroic sacrifice…all of it was reviewed in our two-hour online get-together. The discussion was lively, rewarding and affable. Several of us, in addition to the next book club selection, are going to be reading more Dickens on our own.
These are troubling times, but there is much for which to be thankful. That said, I’ve adopted a new role: curator of my own contentment.

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Tune in to Elaine’s blog posts on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption, the outdoors and the writing life. Her third novel, The Hand of Ganesh is headed toward publication in late 2021.

Snowshoeing is a great way to celebrate Winter.

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Part IV “Somewhere out there…

Tags

adoption, Adoptive Family, Birth Mother, Birthdays, families, reunion, Siblings

Part IV – “Somewhere Out There…”
I think back to the time I was living a year in LA on an academic leave. I kept driving

Birthmother/daughter reconnected. It took 32 years for mother and daughter meet again, but now they have bonded — forever.

by the exits to Burbank. It became such an obsession I finally just turned off and drove through the town. I headed up an Arts Program in Illinois and frequently did “dog and pony shows” promoting the program. I was haunted by the song from a Disney movie, the lyrics starting with “Somewhere out there…” Linda has just moved to Burbank the same year I moved to LA. She was a flutist and had her own company at the time. I was part of a panel at Northern Illinois University for our Arts Plan. Linda was playing flute in the group which played before were I was introduced. I found out she loved that song as much as I did.
I have a place I “hang out in” and have what 
I refer to as my adoptive family.

I always celebrate my birthday there. They know never to come singing “Happy Birthday” or anything like that, but each of the singers will sing my favorite song that night. A friend and I were there this one year and it was such a lovely night. As they do regularly for birthdays, there were glittery things all over the table; they sang my favorite songs, gave me a free dessert. It was all wonderful. Then here comes Richard, a very large man, saying ,”Well Pat, here’s another song for you. We just got a call for this from your daughter.” I’m thinking, my daughter doesn’t even know I’m here or anything about my so called adoptive family. I start asking questions and Richard’s reply was, “Hey, all I know is we just got this phone call; it was your daughter she she asked if we knew this song. I said yes, and she said please sing it for my Mother’s birthday. And so they did. “Somewhere out there…..

Friday:Pat’s blog marathon concludes. Of course, as adoptees and their families (both adopted and original) know, the story never really ends.