Adopting a Silent Spring

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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

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Breaking Through Writer’s Block

Tags

Adaptation, adoption, Contemplation, Discipline, Nature, Novel-in-progress, Snow, Wildlife, Winter's Day

For months, I couldn’t write. Started a decade ago and worked on intermittently, my “novel-in-progress,” wasn’t progressing. Was it ever going to grow into an actual first draft? It had a title — The Hand of Ganesha ~ Clara and Dottie go to India— but after 200 pages, I’d stopped. The two protagonists, like me, were adopted daughters. Unlike me, they had not dealt with the issues of adoption.That’s what brought about their trip to India. I loved the idea behind the book, but it was not going to write itself.
Oh, there were plenty of excuses. Last Fall, I had the house updated: a new exterior stuccoing, fresh paint inside, and new flooring. I was engaged in a year-long decluttering campaign, selling or donating at least a fourth of my possessions. How could I write with so many demands on my time?
Then, just as I was about to knuckle down and get to work, along came the best ski season in years. I’ve loved skiing ever since moving to Northern New Mexico in the 1960s, and, like many of my friends who are still skiing, I want to enjoy the sport while still able.
How could I write with fresh powder snow in the mountains?
And so it went until one snowy morning when a blizzard made it risky to drive anywhere, much less up the windy ski basin road. OK, I told myself, time is running out. I don’t have forever.The clock is ticking. Our days are numbered. Driven by such thoughts, I gathered the photo albums of a research trip I’d made to southern India. I’d start by looking through pictures of the Shore Temple complex at Mahabalipuram. This would be the setting of my novel’s last section. Memories of the trip and of the novel I’d first envisioned came flooding back and I picked up at page 201, where I’d left off.
Just then outside my office window, four deer wandered into the snow-filled yard. Noses to the ground, they began grazing. Apparently there was new grass growing under the snow. They would find food no matter what. After watching them until they ambled on to feed in the yards of my neighbors, I opened my laptop and resumed. I wrote for an hour and continued each day throughout the week. The momentum will continue. In a mysterious way, the deer inspired me to get busy. and just write. Thank you, neighborhood deer.

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Have encounters with nature ever helped you in mysterious ways? Please send me your stories through this website. Especially if they relate to adoption or to writing, I’d be interested in publishing them. And join me on alternate Mondays for an adopted daughter’s reflections on adoption and life.

Adopting the airwaves–>I’m on the radio today!

Tags

adoption, Dealing with Adoption, India, Novel-in-progress, The Writing Life, Walking

At 4 p.m. Mountain Time, 101.1 F.M. KSFR–Wednesday afternoon I’ll be talking about my six published books with show host Abigail Adler. Please tune in!

The Last Word

Wednesdays at 4:00 pm

• Hosted by Abigail Adler

• 

For people who read, for people who write, for people who want to publish, or for people who are just curious…What do writers think? What do writers really do?  Find out – listen to THE LAST WORD: Conversations with Writers every Wednesday at 4 pm with host, Abigail Adler

 

Not so Lazy Days of Summer

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Constancy, Novel-in-progress, Perseverance, Resolution, Summertime, writing

Elaine revising the plot of “Arundati”/ Drawing by Christine Boss

I’m old enough to recall the song from the 1950s about those lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer, but I’m trying to remember: What they were like? Were they a figment of our imaginations? Did they even exist?

This summer, I’m planning to be not lazy or hazy but industrious. Maybe a little bit crazy, as that is often the perfect state of mind for plotting a novel. Well…Perhaps sometimes lazy, but only after working two to five hours daily on my book.

Last December, I toured Southern India to research a sequel to Beast of Bengal. India inspired a whole new plot. Not to my surprise, it features the odyssey of Arundati, an Indian-American adoptee who travels to Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka to learn about her origins.

The ideas are percolating. To allow time for them to blossom, I’m switching to a bi-weekly blogging schedule. Before the first snowflakes fall, I’ll be back to posting every Monday. In the meantime, please know your readership means the world to me. Comments are always welcome!

Elaine digs through old diaries for character clues.

An Adoptee in India, part 3

Tags

adoptee, Bollywood, Chennai, Hinduism, India, Novel-in-progress, St. Thomas, Tamil Nadu

Author’s Note: I grew up hearing about India from my adoptive Dad, who served at a military hospital during WWII. I’ve written one novel, Beast of Bengal, set in the northern part of the Subcontinent. My sequel, Arundati, starts in southern India, Mahabalipuram. This continuing “travel blog” covers highlights of my recent sojourn. India is like no other place in the world, and the places I visited transformed the plot of my novel. My heroine, Arundati, was literally “reborn.”

Saturday, 12/14
We met with  our guide, Charles, for breakfast, and by 8 were on the road. A tour of

Ceremonial dance paying homage to Lord Shiva

Chennai and cultural immersion in the ongoing travelogue by our leader. Tamil, explained Charles, is the land of the Tamils. Chennai is the Bollywood of India and at 9 million (counting the greater area) is the 4th largest city in the Subcontinent. Brits established the city, then called Madras, in 1639. Before the Brits, however, Scots arrived in 1524. In 1995, the name was changed to Chennai. It comprises 500 square miles.

Religion: 20% Christian, 15% Muslim, a sprinkling of Jews, Sikhs and Buddhists. The diversity of India theme continues to be a major thread of Charles’s explication. There are more than 1,600 dialects, 22 languages. Charles said more than once that Chennai has an 80 % literacy level.
In addition to the movie industry, Tamil Nadu is location of Bangalore – India’s Silicon Valley.

We passed the train station, a massive Victorian-style building and learned that there are 15 million train commuters. Also passed Fort St. George and the Anglican Church of South India, the University of Madras. A brief visit to an Armenian Church built in 1712, a white-washed complex of church and other buildings, crypts, gardens and dismal accumulations of bricks and rubble from ongoing efforts to restore and maintain the buildings. So moist on the brick walks, covered with a sheen of green mold, that walking was a bit slippery. The smell of mold filled the air!

After lunch, on to St. Thomas Cathedral, where the saint is buried. He came to

Santhome Church, where St. Thomas was buried

Kerala in 52 A.D., preached the Gospel to fishermen. In 1984, the cathedral became a basilica. Rumbling along, we crossed the Adayar River to the “other” Chennai. Pitiful slums, full of garbage and miserable, mud surrounded dwellings. Lots of mutts (they all seem to be the same brown smallish dog): they’re ubiquitous, tiny children, always people cooking. It seems the women are working extremely hard.
Charles and James continued their overview of India briefings.
The Hindu Trinity: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the protector (10 incarnations), Shiva the destroyer (married to Parvati). Ganesh is the son of Shiva and remover of obstacles. Main texts of Hinduism:  Vedas (which include the Upanishads) and the two epics (Mahabarata and Ramayana). Kolon are the designs outside entrances- sometimes white, other times in vivid colors. Karma: the law of cause and effect. Each action, it is believed, has a reaction.

I was amazed at the diversity of India’s religions!