How to Adopt a Fresh Start

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adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, New Year, Resolutions, Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simplicity, Strength

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. -Anonymous

It’s that time of year when folks proclaim “Out with the old, in with the new!” Past New Year’s Eves found me creating endless lists. My belief was that resolutions could deliver a kind of magic. As I cranked out yet another tally of resolutions, I wracked my brain. How could I make the upcoming the new year could be better than the preceding one? Organizing the closets, losing five pounds, finishing my novel, growing vegetables, decluttering, being more (present, spiritual, generous, courageous or any number of virtuous traits)? The assumption was that something needed to be fixed and by sheer force of will I could do it. Thus my list of personal prods.
Did I accomplish the resolutions? Partially, “yes” but mostly “not really.” The mental and emotional energy involved in resolution-writing was hardly worth the effort. This year, I’ve had it with the list method. Instead, I’m aiming for a new level of comfort with being an adoptee.
As 2014 draws to a close, I’ve decided on making one word my year-long motto: BELIEVE.
Two years ago, I published The Goodbye Baby-A Diary about Adoption. In my memoir, I concluded that I’d moved beyond the invisible wounds of being adopted at age five. It was relatively easy to announce that I’d embraced the role of adoptee and  reached a truce with abandonment issues. Living those words, however, is another matter. But I believe that it’s possible.
For 2015, I’m following the advice of Sarah Ban Breathnach in her excellent book Simple Abundance-A Daybook of Comfort and Joy:
“…keep on believing that you have the passion, intelligence, brilliance, creativity, wisdom, clarity, depth, and savvy to find that quiet center of solace, serenity, and strength necessary to create and sustain an authentic life.” Like Ms. Breathnach, I feel that “When you start believing, you’ll discover that all things are really possible.”

Join Elaine every other Monday for her take on adoption and life!

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Advice from a Tree

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Adoptee Recovery, adoption, Bookmarks, Catana Tully, Dealing with Adoption, Diaries, healing, memoir, Resourcefulness, San Diego, Simplicity, Trees

“When the Student is ready, the Teacher will appear” -Unknown

This California tree overlooks sun-baked terrain.

Stand tall and Proud
Sink Your Roots into the Earth
Be Content with your Natural Beauty
Drink Plenty of Water
Enjoy the View!

-by Ilan Shamir

LIKE THE REHABILITATED ALCOHOLIC, the recovering adoptee must be ever vigilant for signs of backsliding. Nature, I have found, provides opportunities to gain clear vision, to strengthen, invigorate and purge. For example, a grove of Eucalyptus trees near my son’s home became a psychological springboard. For one week, I strolled daily under the majestic giants, stopping occasionally to write in my journal. It so happened that in the journal was a bookmark that spoke directly to my heart. Quoted above with the permission of http://www.YourTrueNature.com …is the lesson. Sounds simple, but it is actually profound. Yes, I’m following advice from a tree, delivered by a bookmark!

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on adoption and life.

TWO YEARS AGO, motivated by the desire to provide a “tell-all confessional,” I published The Goodbye Baby-A Diary about Adoption. Through the Internet’s large, rambling “adoption community,” I’ve met dozens of other adult adoptees, many of whom have written about the same hard lessons of growing up adopted. The response from my readers has been gratifying, but even more beneficial has been the freedom allotted by pouring the angst into a book and journeying forward with courage and positivity.

And yes, it is possible to leave the past behind, to move on. But let’s get real. No matter how much analysis, clarification, self-appreciation and education the adopted self receives, the demons return. Thanks to the support of my readers and the excellent adoption memoirs I’ve read, especially Catana Tully’s Split at the Root, I am able to recognize the demons and combat them.

Hope comes from many sources. Who knows where or when the next beacon will appear? While taking a

If we take the time to listen, Nature awaits us with answers.

beautiful walk on one of San Diego’s many urban trails. I realized that the answers to adoption issues, and maybe to anyone’s issues, need not be complicated.

So here, with the clearer vision of one who’s fought the demons for years and come to an armistice, is the message: Letting the past take up too much of today is not a good idea. Learning is a daily challenge, but one that makes life worthwhile. The rewards are never guaranteed, but when they do arrive, we are able to emulate the tall, proud, healthy tree. My gratitude is deep, I’m drinking lots of water, and I’m working on the rest.

Poetry for Mind and Spirit

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Art of Haiku, Conciseness, Imagery, Japanese Tanka, Less is More, Self-realization, Simplicity

Early morning freeze
Catches plum blossoms off guard.
Withered pink petals.
-Roberta Fine, 2014

My friend Roberta is an octogenarian whose appearance and mental liveliness seem to deny her age. A retired teacher, writer, gardener and poet, Roberta wrote her first haiku over five years ago. For the first year, she created a haiku daily, and now she creates several each week, collecting them in a daily journal.
Every Christmas, rather than sending an account of the past year’s activities, Roberta sends friends and families a collection of haikus in which she’s captured the seasons. She calls her creations “the joy of the day,” and appreciates the discipline of capturing northern New Mexico skies, mountains and weather in the spare, Zen-like style of haiku.
Inspired by a book titled The Art of Haiku by Stephen Addis, she has studied the form, even as her practice has developed. She describes Haiku as follows:
“In Haiku, the words are plain, everyday, arranged in three lines of five, seven, five syllables each, although that rule is not iron clad. It is a descendant of the Japanese Tanka, an earlier, more aristocratic form of poetry of seven lines. Tanka tended to concern itself with yearning, loss, the subtle maneuvers of court life. As civil wars receded, the aesthetic changed. Today, Haiku can express the Japanese aesthetic in whatever language one writes.
“Basho, a Japanese poet of the seventeenth century, provides the model still. His life reminds one of Francis of Assisi, who trod the by-roads of Umbria, espousing Lady Poverty, preaching the Gospel and singing the praises of Brother Sun and Sister Moon five centuries earlier.
“Like Francis in Italy, Basho roamed the mountains of Japan, staying in huts and temples, sometimes teaching, attracting acolytes. Brushed by Buddhism, with its emphasis on the transience of life, he incorporated into his poetry an allusion to the season, the beauty of austerity, a loneliness, mysterious depth, an instant of truth. The reader is invited in to contribute his own perception and share the moment.
Haiku eschews the conventions of Western poetry. It communicates what is, not what it is like. Two contrasting concrete images in the poem spark a recognition in the reader. “Yes, I’ve been there, felt that.” Its plain words invite a similar, simple response. We all have the souls of monk-poets; like Basho and Francis we respond spontaneously to Brother Sun and Sister Moon and sing.”
Roberta has been rewarded by the discipline of the form. Haiku, she concludes, makes you think carefully about words even as you enjoy their music. She’s embraced Haiku as a way of looking at the world and expressing her thoughts, observations, and emotions.

Roberta Fine creates a haiku daily, for discipline and pleasure.