Day #365: Final Day of 365 Project

 # 365

 12/31/2010

The Chicken Whisperer 12/31/2010

Our last day of this 365 Day Project. I thought about writing about the highlights of the year.  For me the highlight was my 10 days in Rhode Island writing.  Another big highlight was the Greenfield Center School 8th Grade plays last May.  They were so awesome.  I was so blown away by them.  Another great day for me was celebrating Pete Seeger's life and honoring Juanita Nelson with the large community through singing and marching and feeling the strength of all being together.  

I  asked Emma what her highlight was and she pointed to the sky and said, "there."  I agree, the moments, many many many of them were awesome highlights.  I shot a lot of sunsets this year that took my breath away.  We also sang in 2 concerts this year, they were wonderful.

I also interviewed 18 women this year who were remarkable human beings.  The acquisition of knowledge about adoption has challenged me, stretched me, made me grow, I am a different person.

And for me another highlight is that these two girls are both such an important part of my life.  Both of them have been since their births and I hope they are til my death.  

There were so many samenesses between 2010 and 2015, predominately so many of the same loving wonderful people that make up my rich, rich life.

2015 will go down as a learning year, a challenging year, but a full year.  I am sad to see all of this go, but I am glad to start something new, too.  I'm not sure what that is going to look like, but I will pop up now and again.  Meanwhile, Happy New Year and please be safe.

And a final poem from Emma

 Speculation

The new year crashes in like waves on the coast of California. The cold chills us and gives shape to our breaths. The snow reflects the moon and our memories from the year before, and the wind gently pushes expectations and speculations for the times to come. The gray clouds from yesterday have moved on and faded into the fog of tomorrow. The time at hand bites at our skin and urges us  forward into the New Year.

~ Emma Worth

Day # 364: 2nd to last day

# 364

This is what I wanted last night for a Rumi quote.  It was on my wall when I got up this morning; perfect timing.

Do you remember what the purpose of doing this blog was back on January 1st?  It was to do a 365  Day photo project and keep my eye on beauty.  I documented the year with the idea of beauty in the forefront.  All over social media today there were blurbs about intentionally finding beauty each day of ones' life and the healthy impact it has on ones' bodies.  Everyday this year I have focused on beauty for at least 15 minutes and I have documented as much of it as I could.  That has been a successful goal.

Now the reason for doing this was to balance my life while I dug into researching Original Mother grief, grief in general and the largeer impact of adoption.  I knew from the beginning that it was going to be a painful journey and I wanted to intentionally do something to be balanced.  I wanted to be done with the text of the book by tomorrow.  I won't reach that goal.  Sustaining writing has been so much more physically demanding than I would have ever imagined.  But don't worry, it will be done.
I love the book today more than I loved it a year ago.  I have only met 3 of the women I interviewed, but I feel as though I have 15 more friends.   And the others, the professionals, the adoptees, the original fathers, they have all enriched my life.  I will keep on it, it will get finished.

Day # 363: Sleep With Rumi

 

#363

12/29/2010

This evening I have thrown away at least 300 photos from the year. I went through the month of March. I need to throw out more, but it is a good start. I also threw out over a garbage bag full of paper today. I'm beginning to be able to thin out in here, to simplify, to start a new, or at least fresh. I'm excited.

These were a photo and part of my entry from 12/29/2010.  It makes me laugh.  I'm still trying to thin everything out and for some reason it just gets thicker and thicker.  I threw out another 300 photos today and I am designing a filing system for my photo life.  Not having a lot of luck, but trying.

Last night was the first snowstorm of the season.  We didn't get hit hard at all. Lots of ice now, though.  Oh well, it wasn't until January last year that we got hit so hard.

A special colleague of mine gave me the Essential Rumi following three friends' deaths in 2005.  As I roll up this project I am pulling Rumi back out.  I thought maybe I could share a piece tonight, but I need more time to sleep with him.

 Today's pictures don't look like first snow beauty.  I gave up Diet Coke for Emma's Christmas present and I am suffering from some detox symptoms; these photos are much more representative of my frame of mind. 

Day # 362: Happy 44th Paul and Molly

 # 362

Here is an article written by my friend, Christine Dutton about the need for BALANCE in our health journies.





 5-practices-for-nurturing-happiness




Birds have had a dominant role in my life this week and for some reason I haven't been writing about them.  It is so unlike me, but I guess I have not really known what to write about my experiences.  Today I came around a corner on a dirt road and a pick up truck was zooming by, but putting on his breaks quickly.  I realized that just over the edge of the road were about 30 turkeys.  I stopped and got out of the car with my camera.  As usual I couldn't do them justice, but it was fun any way. I left them, went up the road a bit and turned around.

 Just as I was coming by them again, I realized they were all beginning to flock away, They began to do their imitation of flying up out of the spot and above the road, taking them up a straight ledge on the other side of the road. They were definitely intentionally moving out of this site. 

 When I got around the corner there were eight men in camouflage with hunting rifles beginning to leave their cars and move up the road together.  They were menacing looking and I believe they were waiting for me to get out of the way, but by the time I did the birds were on the run.

Day # 361: Take it easy Sunday

#361

Today I am grateful for

Reubens at the Coop

Friends baring gifts

the love of listening to others' adventures

silly giggling with Emma 

Visualization

An eagle's nest 12/27/2010

Apparently five years ago today we had the first big storm of 2010-11 Winter.  I think that is happening this year, too.  Looks like our first real storm will be tomorrow night and I will be able to end this project with snow.  I began it in snow.  Ahhhh the circle of life.

Day #360: Peace Backpack

 # 360

This is a day late, but still heart felt.  

Merry Christmas.  It is almost noon on Christmas day and the sun is shining.  It isn't as warm as predicted, but it is blue and lovely and the fog is gone after four straight days of it.

I have been waking up in Westminster West on Christmas morning for almost 15 years.  This year I made the decision not to participate in any traditions.  The reason for this is kind of double edged.  I am having a very difficult time at the moment, and yet, I feel so blessed, so full of gratitude because for the first time in a true and deep way I have been letting myself take in all of the love and support offered me.  I am vulnerable, in pain, and thankful all at once.  Thus, I decided to take this day for some spiritual self-reflection.  But that means forgoing the love and familial warmth of Christmas morning.  I miss them.

Part of me wants to acknowledge the people who have been irreplaceable this year.  But that misses the point.  The point has to do with the positive energy,  the warm light, the strong arms and steady hands who all together comprise this pod of warmth and protection I have felt each day.  All together this energy embraces me. 

On Monday when Denise and I  were driving back from my disability hearing just before the Noho airport, I looked to my right and a blue heron was flying parallel to me, his wings spread out in a glide, his coloring visible in the grey dreary wetland.  It was a powerful image; they are such amazing birds.  It was December 21st in Western Massachusetts and there was a great blue heron flying right near me. How could I not take him as a sign?  They say he is a sign of a creative future, a new world, change. 

Last night, Kate Stevens, minister of a local Congregational church, talked about packing a backpack with items that would take care of oneself in this time of fear and violence and distress.  She suggested that you memorize that poem, song lyric or prayer that speaks to you, that brings you internal peace and place it in your backpack.  I want to find that piece of peace today.  I would love to be able to write it for others, just give a little bit of peace.

For me, my picture taking is my biggest item in my backpack.  This blog has been that; a place to focus on beauty, gratitude and forgiveness.   I am shocked at how regular I have been and as the project comes to an end I'm trying to be conscious of the other tools I have packed in my peace bag along the way.

I haven't finished the book and I won't give up on it, but because of my pain and my inability to support myself,  changes will come.  I now have to research making a living in my present condition.

But I am held, so I am not alone.  What a life?  How lucky I am.  Today I am nurturing my spirit.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

Day #359: May The Force Be With You

# 359

 Christmas Day in 2015; 53 degrees, sunny and content.  I actually wrote today and planned on posting it tonight, but I am too tired.  I will do it tomorrow.  

Went to Star Wars!!!!!!  YAYAYAYAYYAY

Not sure about all of the bio kids facing bio parents in odd dangerous places struggling over power, but I do get that good and bad stuff.  And the symbolism of good and bad was kind of multi leveled.  Go see it.  It keeps you in suspense and it makes you cheer.

                                                                                                                   12/25/2010

Day # 358: Return of Light

#358

And it was said, Let there be light.

And there was light

And it was good.

 I am grateful for:
attention to my spiritual being tonight
A welcoming community
Singing of sweet.....
knowing that I am loved
understanding

Day #357: Foggy Before Christmas

                                                                                  #357

 I don't understand why blogger is so difficult tonight.  I can't get it to behave.  Stranger than fiction.

I am grateful for:

Chicken Parmegian

a good market or two

fog

Emma's manuscript

clear roads, well except for the fog.

 

It is December 23rd in New England.

Day # 356: Recovery In the Coop

 #356

I am grateful for

a place to go when I feel outrageously vulnerable and still feel accepted

A good Mesa Verde salad

all those children and their parents who share their lives with me (Today Sebastian brought me apple pie and tried to take both me and Amie to the doctors.)

Laughter

and real conversations with people I have loved for many years.

You know there are only nine days left to tell me your favorite sweater story.

Greenfield folks, a bunch of us were going to try to gather at the Coop and sing carols on Thursday at three.  This won't be well organized, but I thought it might be fun to do, so join us if you'd like.

His first real haircut. 

Day# 355: Yay Winter Solstice

 # 355

All of my life I fought with my mother over the idea that one should or should not tell the truth about how one feels or is doing.  She said, it's nobodies' business, they don't want to hear about it anyway and one should just keep moving whether you feel well or not.  Now this is the woman who went into labor playing a concert at Woolsey Hall with me.  She finished the concert and drove herself an hour to her hospital.  This is the woman who on the same week that her husband died suddenly at the dining room table played the first flute part in the St. John's Passion for the Greenwich Philharmonic.  She felt one could always put on the face, and one should.  When I was 9 months pregnant and it was my first presidential election, she put me in the car with her and we marched into the voting place and she acted as though there was nothing wrong with her teen age daughter.  She was a remarkable woman.

But I felt that not telling the truth, that not being open about how one was feeling at the time made things worse, that it was secret keeping.  Secret keeping was bad and unhealthy both physically and emotionally.    I have thought that for the past 60 years or so, I name things, I don't put the mask on, I actively have learned to not put on the smile so I thought.

Today at my hearing I was told that I was intellectualizing everything and not expressing what really was, that I was not telling people I was in pain, I was not expressing what I needed in order to stay out of pain.  I was shocked, well of course I wasn't.  People don't lay that stuff on others and especially not in a professional environment, right, Ma?  I had to actively fight my mother's teachings today with all the strength I had in order to describe in plain English how I really am.  That I wake up 2 times a night in pain and have to move around to get relief.  That I cannot stand for too long, that a movie is usually too long for me to sit through, that I did not go to my family on Thanksgiving because of my pain level.  I don't tell people, I try to keep busy and, although I couldn't play the St John's Passion today, I couldn't even stand or sit through my own concert yesterday and had to get up and down, hopefully hidden well enough that I didn't disturb the audience too much.

Those ways of being, those benchmarks we use to compare ourselves to, those family cultural dos and donts are remarkably strong and strident.    I had an extremely difficult time expressing my pain today.  It was a hard hard day.

12/21/2010

The sunset was not this spectacular this year.  But it is the Solstice, and light will begin to return.  Hallelujah 

 This message is from Access Connecticut to Original Birth Certificates.  I have highlighted Lorraine's blog a few times, I do it again.

A BIG THANKS to Lorraine Dusky, founder of First Mother Forum and author of Hole in My Heart, a memoir, who endorsed Access Connecticut's legislative proposal. Ms. Dusky states she enthusiastically supports restoring the right of adult adoptees to obtain without qualifications a copy of their original birth certificates.

Please let Ms. Dusky know how much you support her leadership and contributions to the adult adoptee movement.

[Birth Mother] First Mother Forum
www.firstmotherforum.com
Email support group for birth mothers who relinquished a child during the closed adoption era (1945-1980). Poems, membership, letters, and testimonials are given.

 

Photo by Pop Stefanija

with Mary Cay Brass and Greenfield Harmony 12.20.15