Day #33: Groundhog Day

It is deep out there.

I did a meditation from The Book of Forgiveness today.  The assignment was to imagine a cloak you can put all around you that will keep you safe.  My cloak was a thick brownish red corduroy.  It wrapped all the way around me and kept me protected for an hour.  It is now there for me to put on whenever I need it.  Great exercise, I loved it.

It is Groundhog Day and there will be 6 more weeks of winter.  Basically,  winter is half over, but here in W. Ma. it doesn't start feeling like true winter until MLK Day and then on February 2nd everyone wants it to go away.  Well, that's not true; the skiers and snowshoers are very happy with six more weeks.  It is beautiful and I really am more comfortable with it than the over 90* humid weather.  I could never live in the South.

I will have 3 stories to share by the end of the week.  I will use them to create a new fund raiser so I can do some traveling, too.  I think a part of what will make this book special will be the personal touches that the photography will offer.

There are a couple of questions I have to answer before I do that though.  One has to do with confidentiality.  I have already decided not to disclose my daughter's name, but what about her biological father's name?  I think I have to have his permission to use it, which means I need to contact him.  Should I write him?  Should I call him up after all these years?  Or should I just change his name in my story?

I started my blog list (you can find it on the lower right hand side of the blog).  Let me know if you'd like me to add yours.  One that I posted today is not an adoption blog, but one written by a very good friend of mine who lives in Jerusalem.  She works with the Palestine YMCA.  Loren is an extremely good poet and writer and her blog is always poignant.

Do you know about The Forgiveness Project out of England?  Google it; it's remarkable.  The founders believe that peace can only be found through forgiveness.  Very interesting.

Another word about Pete Seeger... Yesterday's event made me connect with some lovely memories and friends from my childhood.  I will share one great memory with  you.

When I was 12, my Mom and Dad packed up 5 of their 6 children, ages 7-17, and took us off to Europe for a few weeks.  They rented a SIMCA station-wagon in England, which was not very large and stuffed us all in it with 10 bags, a few stuffed animals and my sister's ukulele.   We drove through England and France singing songs at the top of our lungs with Barb accompanying and leading us to greatness.  I remember at least 5 songs that we sang, I hope we did not sing the  same 5 songs over and over again for 3 weeks.  But a couple of them were songs that Pete Seeger wrote and sang: Where Have All The Flowers Gone and The Fox.  We also had many of the national anthems memorized, Dad taught us them.  We may have blurted out several of them in a parking lot in Mont St. Michael on Bastille Day embarrassing my poor mother.

I remember the trip fondly.  In someways I think of it as the family's swan song because by Christmas of that year Dad was hospitalized.  But singing to Barb's ukulele from the way back of a Simca in Normandy remains one of my fondest memories.  How did my parents manage?