July 20, 2014

I have been thinking a lot today about the blog I kept throughout my 365 Day project in 2010.  I've been thinking about the fact that I intentionally sat down and wrote something for an audience almost every night for that whole year.  It was a difficult year for my whole family and actually some of my friends went through some big stuff that year, too.  Three other friends lost a parent that year and one friend suffered from Lyme's, still suffers, but then was caught in the middle of a diagnosis.  Anyway, it was hard, but I wrote every night.  I took pictures every day but 6.  So why am I having a difficult time writing consistently for this one. 

My best guess is that I want this to be on topic and not just a running narrative of life.  I want to write about my mission writing this book, my journey learning about motherhood through this lens.  It is not always easy for me to articulate what it is I am thinking and learning about this subject.  The subject of adoption is red hot and sensitive. 

The other day Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy posted an excited status that a book she had written a chapter in was out.  Very cool!!!!  That post became flammable.  I have watched the eruption around language several times now.  I went immediately to one of my writing places and wrote a reaction asking people to read Claudia's chapter before they criticized.   Here is this person who works tirelessly to help people hurt by adoption and she was called all sorts of names by the very people she wishes to help, and no one had read the chapter, yet.

I came home from writing my post and I went to type it in, but first I reread the comments on Claudia's status.  They felt so huge and I felt like I needed to shut up and learn more before I jumped in the  brine.  So I did not post my writing.  I went silent.  Now sometimes silence is good and sometimes it is exactly what I want to fight.  I want all to have voice, to not fear joining in the conversation.  But I feel that is difficult to do in this particular venue.  Instead of voicing one's concerns, people jump and call each other names.  I am use to being in the thick of things and I know I am able to communicate, but it is scary in this case.  I don't want to be jumped on.

That said, I will continue to write what I learn. 

 

 

I also want to remind people of the Fundraiser.  I've received some fun auction items.  Tom Ashley of Dancing Bear Farms in Leyden donated a fig tree in it's second year.  Tai Kwon Do Center of Greenfield, donated a gift certificate, Carole Crompton donated a felted phone case, I have assorted beautiful jewelry and Donna Meller donated her skill and time and made the flyer.

 

 

I'll post a list of everything before the day.  I think everyone knows that Emma and Chris Worth are performing and so is Phil Rabinowitz.  I need more appetizer makers, so if you are in the mood for donating appetizers of some sort, please connect.  It should be a wonderful event and I am looking so forward to beginning the interview process for the book.  It is all really exciting.

 

Thanks everyone for your love and help.  It's wonderful. 

 

 



Healing Motherhood

July 10, 2014

I have been thinking a lot about the logo my 13 year old goddaughter made me for this project.  I told her I wanted it to have something to do with healing, but I left her to her own imagination.  What she designed is a symbol for healing motherhood.

 

 

 



 

In my situation healing began with the process of healing my relationship with my mother.  Sometimes I can recognize the hard work it took on both our parts and other times I wonder if it was just age, maturity.  But I know better, I know too many women who are still confused by their negative feelings: betrayal, the sense of not being seen nor nurtured by the one person whose job it was.  And then these same women went off and had children of their own and had no idea how to nurture. Yet, so many of them did it and raised strong wise women and men.    Why do mothers get such bad raps?  Why is motherhood criticized so terribly?  And why does society blame mothers for so much wrong in the world?  Did you know that the educational level of the mother is a strong predictor for the economic success of the child?  This is a commonly used indicator in global policy making and resource sharing. I’m not going to answer these questions or describe how awful I believe this thinking is, I’ll save it for another day, but it is a strong indication on how much society places on the shoulders of mothers.

Our society sets up women to fail.  Women are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  A woman can’t get welfare help if she has children and goes back to school, but it is her educational level that indicates the economic success of those children.  But if she doesn’t go to school and is collecting welfare she has to attend some program, not college, for 20 hours a week and put 2 year olds into day care.

My mother raised seven children with an alcoholic husband who died when she was 52 and 5 of those children were teenagers.  She was an extremely smart woman and a valued professional flutist.  So how was she supposed to nurture all of us alone?  I forgive her.  I forgive her for not supporting me to draw upon my natural abilities to love and nurture and to raise my own child. I forgive her for giving into societal pressures and forcing my hand into giving my baby up.  I do.  And I believe that forgiveness is the first step to healing motherhood.  We need to accept what is and forgive.  And we need to accept the fact that forgiving does not mean forgetting or not feeling.   We have to name the losses and betrayal.  We need to express the feelings and to forgive.

I believe telling our stories in creative ways is a form processing and healing.  It is a way of naming our feelings, naming our truths and finding our way through them, not held trapped by them.  And it provides us with ways to share with others who have experienced similar things, who may have found healthy strategies for living with pain and challenges, or who can just understand.  Telling stories of motherhood, declaring the societal contradictions, the no win situations, and the lows and the highs helps everyone to make peace with motherhood; to heal motherhood.

Thus, my project is an opportunity to allow women to tell their stories, to give voice to the truths about being an original mother.  It is place to continue the healing process, to begin to forgive, to begin to educate the public, and to reclaim our motherhood.    

 

 

Catching Up

July 3, 2014

Well, I suppose a lot of you are wondering what’s going on, Lindy.  The last date of the Kickstarter was June 12^th. I am amazed how quickly time has passed.  I need to explain why I have been so silent when it was clear I was so excited by the idea of creating this book; documenting the voices of original mothers.  After being so verbal about a giant learning curve and meeting many peoples and having contact with not only new people, but a new community, a new field of study, I seemed to have vanished.  I didn’t mean to, really.

small portion of my family; picture by Melody
 

       

          I have been diagnosed with extensive osteoarthritis and have been almost immobile for about a month.  Fortunately during this process part of my family arrived and camped out in my yard making me laugh and encouraging me to keep walking towards my dream, just make sure to take my cane and swim.  So I am back on the job now.

          I’m asking for help.  I am being upfront about needing help pulling the next stage of the project off.  Several of my friends have already stepped up to the plate, including a friend letting me use her restaurant for an upcoming Fundraiser, musicians donating their time and artists and others giving me items for the silent auction we will have.  Many people have already offered to volunteer.  I am very thrilled.  This fundraiser is the first part of my Plan B. for getting Strength To Speak written and published.  It is on Aug. 10^th at Mesa Verde in Greenfield.

          I am intrigued by how difficult it is for my generation to ask for help, to be clear about what one needs and to accept it when it is offered, Yet, we also are very willing to step in and help when someone does make a request.  We are a generous and caring group.  If we subtract money from our picture of needs two interesting thoughts occur to me.  One is I become incredibly aware of how much we all have to offer that we don’t acknowledge as valuable.  And the second thought is how the dollar really is an overwhelming necessary evil.  This project illustrates both points.  It illustrates the contradiction, the complexity between these two points.  Unfortunately, I am unable to pull this off without money, but the doing of it, as broke as I am, makes me feel abundant with riches.  Here I am asking people to share their most vulnerable spots, to look at my most vulnerable spot, and what that has accomplished is the buildup of abundance in my life.  I feel as though I am extremely blessed.

          So I will continue to walk.  If you are local and want to help me put on my fundraiser event, please contact me.  If you are not local, the second event will be launching an on-line fundraiser for a smaller and more precise budget.  Stay tuned for that.  If you are an original mother and want to participate in my documentation, please contact me.  I continue to look for voices. 

          Again and always thank you for your support and help.