Day #90: Building a Manuscript

#90

Bye-bye, March.  

I am posting for the sake of beauty, I am intentionally surrounding myself with beauty.  This is my commitment to myself tonight.  I have been blogging for 90 days, posting a photo of the day.  I love the intentional act of doing so, even if I don't always know whether it makes sense to my followers.  It is the photo that is the core.  And the text is the support.  I am thankful for this act, this act of reaching out each day.  Tonight, besides today's photos, I will post 2010 photo of the day and a poem that I am working with. I have begun the process of pulling together a poetry manuscript while I develop the adoption book so that I don't lose my poetry.  Like the photography, the poetry is a form of communicating my life.  

Today is day #90 and day #1 of building a manuscript.

3/31/2010

This is Day #90 of 2010.  It was taken in E. Longmeadow or S. Springfield outside a doctor's office where my friend was being treated for Lyme.  She was just getting worse and worse.  I remember looking at the manicured lawns of this building and thinking we had entered into a whole new world, that it had no connection to W. Massachusetts at all.  There was green grass, which we had not seen in almost 6 months.  I felt the whole experience of trying to find help for my friend and stop the deterioration of her body and find a way out of her excruciating pain was surreal like manicured green grass in March.

A holy vigil

Friends surround the one

entering the new plane.

Chant

Sing

Prey,

hold hands,

wash dishes,

make meals.

Read,

get air,

take a walk.

Psyches and egos

take a break

shrink for a time.

Let heart

let energy

unidentified

fill the space

around the deathbed

fill the chest cavities

take over from

the concrete world.

I knew what it was like to fly

For only seconds

Three at the most

But my soul was joined by yours

And I followed you

Out of the room

Soaring out to Sugarloaf.

I stopped

You flew on

Joined the hawks.

At that moment

I knew my God.

Day #89: Successful Monday

#89

Chris and I unintentionally attended a one year old birthday luncheon this morning.  It was quite sweet.  On my way to Northampton I saw 6 red tails and coming home 5, including one sitting on a pole just as I entered Exit 18.  He was sitting in just the right the way to highlight his beautiful red tail.  It was a splendid message.  And it was clear why indigenous people see this time of year as the time of the red tail.  I have always counted it as my bird.  I feel safe when they are around.  

Why am I having such a hard time adding links? Sometimes I feel really stupid when dealing with my computer.  Anyway, here is a new link  by one of the Lost Daughters.  You might find her website interesting.  She is an adoptee who was born in Korea.

http://portraitofafeministart.blogspot.com?view=magazine

Children.

Yes, it was a successful day and I got a lot done.  We had rehearsal this evening and I got home late and I have lost my voice, so I am just going to sleep.  I loved taking pictures today, too.    Matter of fact, I liked most everything about today.   That includes standing outside on a beautiful evening watching satellites zoom past the moon.

Day #88: Blogging for Beauty Balance

#88

The workshop I went to yesterday that did me the most good was on using social media to advance your cause, or how to get as many hits on a blog or website as you can.  It was really interesting and I realized that a lot of what I do is the opposite of what I should do.  Like I like making up these pithy little titles for the day, but  apparently its a no no for reaching one's maximum hit potential.   You are supposed to use as many keywords in your titles and text that you can, so that spiders detect the mission of your blog and your ranking goes up.

This got me thinking again about the mission of my blog.  The truth is that the mission is not to raise peoples' conscientiousness on the issues of adoption.   That's a side bonus.  I really did mean to set it up for my 356 Day Project, a place to host and share those photos and a plaace to ramble about interesting issues of the day.  I have ended out sharing poetry and trying to get others to interact with ideas,  but I have not focused in to one primary issue.  I don't think I'm going to change that, but I might start a website that is inclusive of photos, poetry, adoption and participatory curriculum.  The website will house pages on the rest of the stuff, maybe my domain that Ember created for me can be the hosting agent.

A good question is, who do you want reading your blog?  I can't answer it at the moment.  I think one cannot market their blog successfully until one answers that question.  I am satisfied for the moment. I will continue to do what I am doing and try to incorporate some of the tricks I learned yesterday.  It was a really good workshop and when I get sent the link to the manual that Claudia has written I will link it to here.

I also believe one of my strengths is the ability to network people together, so I hope this blog doees some of that.  I want to share others' blogs, others' poems, others' sweater stories.  Talking about sweater stories, Trace turned me on to this small press that is really cool called Porkbelly Press (porkbellypress.wordpress.com)  Send me sweater stories, I may have figured out how to print them.

The other share I want to do is Sarah's food and yarn blog.

  

peachesandpurls.com


On the phone this morning with an old friend from Marlboro, Kevin, and he started telling me about a Voodoo woman working with inner city men in alternative health practices.  I think I want a grant to be able to go and find healers inside inner city communities and interview them.  I'm telling you I am really good at thinking up new ideas.  Wish I was as successful at making a living.

I don't know how I managed to take so many photos today, but I liked a lot of what I took.  And at the end of the day Emma came to visit and made me laugh for a while.  Yep!!!!! She's my girl. 

Day 87: Blogging For Beauty

#87

This was taken in the Fitchburg Burger King at 7 a.m.; it has been along time since I woke  up early and headed off for a conference.  But this morning we got up and were out before 6:30 and by Orange it was snowing.  There we were, headed for Boston in the snow on Rt. 2, but it's March 28th.  Then I started thinking about.  It is also Emma's older brother's birthday.  The night he was born I was unable to get to his mother because it was black ice between Greenfield and Concord.  Then, 2 years later, Emma's Uncle, Grampy and I had gone out to the Boston area on the birthday and 2 days before the family was leaving to go live in Japan. On our way home we hit ice.  We slid through Leominister, Fitchburg and Athol.  So, I guess, once again, our understanding of March and the coming on of spring is thwarted with memories and reality.  Snow is not unheard of in late March in New England. We made it there and back with no incident.  Thank you, Herb.   

Claudia and Max

I met Claudia today.  Funny we've been corresponding for a year, but just met.  I went to her presentation and tomorrow I will write about it.  Max is Claudia's son that she is in reunion with.  He was at the workshop, too.  I did get to talk to him a little bit.  So nice to see them together.   You will get to read about them in my book.  Made me so happy to meet them.

I also went to the panel discussion of Lost Daughters (www.thelostdaughters.com/), a group of adopted, women writers who blog and write about adoption issues.  I bought one of their anthologies today, Lost Daughters Writing Adoption From a Place of Empowerment and Peace,edited by Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, et al.  This is a remarkable group of women with multiple understandings of being a voice for adoptees and very engaged in making that voice audible and listened to and inclusive.  Their discussion was about inclusion and ending the meanness in the field, especially on social media without shutting up.  It was a very important discussion for me to hear, because I am so likely to shut up on social media in fear of being pounced upon.   I appreciated the discussion.

Being in a car with Trace for 4 hours made us develop all sorts of new projects.  I always have so much fun with an idea collaborator.  Not all of them will come to  fruition, but the ones that sing to us will rise to the surface and have substance.  Stay Tuned.

The Charles River in the snow in late March

Day #86: Feeling Stymied

#86

Allergy season has begun.  Snow season leaves and allergies begin.  This is unfair.  I felt stymied all day long, unable to focus on anything I had to do.  I did not accomplish much at all.  Tomorrow is the conference, here is hoping I have more energy tomorrow than I did today.  

What I did do today is go through poetry to put together a manuscript.  Again, there are some days one should not try to be objective about one's own work.  I didn't like any of it today.  Now we have entered Aries, and apparently this particular year is supposed to be dynamic and good for us Aries, so I am hoping today was not typical of the next 28 days.  I am in my house and I need to soar. 

Anybody want to guess what kind of bird this is?  Do you think it is a waxwing?  Or is it a cardinal that dipped herself in yellow ink?  I can't tell.  I took three or four pictures of her and in each one I think it is a different bird.  In one she looks like a parrot of some sort.  Suggestions?

I was hoping that I would have the Indiegogo set up by today.  I don't.  I do, however, have first drafts of 4 women's stories complete.  I did a 2 hour interview yesterday and have 3 more set up which will bring the total to 16.  I hope I get at least 3 set up tomorrow.  I figure if I do 20 I will have a good array from which to publish.  People keep asking me to put some bites on this blog, but I don't feel comfortable doing that.  Maybe I can put some of my story up, but not others until they are ready.

Day # 86      3/27/2010

I remember being thrilled by this photo.  I only had my 50 mm lens on at that point.  Looking back at my old blog I realize that five years ago today I took my first walk down under the Turners Falls' bridge.  It was grey and partially warm that day, too, but the walk was dramatic.  There was a lot of rushing water and high water levels pushed up against dark green painted iron bridge.  

Day # 85: Long Day

#85

What a day!   Didn't have a moment to breathe and I still have Emma with me who is making crazy voices to entertain either her or me.  So tonight you get a poem by, Grace.  Enjoy.

Love Poem for my Skeleton

By Grace VanSteenburg

You make your presence

clearer to me all the time.

You have never been shy.

Every part of you pokes and pries

against my flesh.

knobby knees,

long, stick-like fingers,

spine crooked as a tree branch,

feet too long and thin

to fit correctly into shoes

leaving blisters on my heels,

tailbone that aches

as a reminder of my foolishness,

the crooked teeth I try to hide,

jagged pelvis

creates a cave

so deep I can push my hand inside.

As a child

I despised you,

blamed you for

my clumsiness.

You forced me

to stand in the back row

of class pictures with all the boys

and tower over all the lovely girls

with their smooth curves.

As a mother

my nursing child stripped you

of your insulation

to feed his growing body,

leaving you more exposed.

I scarcely recognize my face

in photographs anymore.

My chin too sharp

against a crane’s neck.

But it is you who holds me,

steadies me.

It is you who carries me.

Those knobby knees

allowed me to

fly

passed maples and birches.

Your long, stick fingers

grasp this pen in its strange grip.

Your crooked spine

helps me everyday

to stand tall

for 82 children to look up to.

Your long, thin feet

take hold of slick rocks

as I wade into the river depths.

Even your aching tailbone

reminds me of that stupid kid

I never want to lose.

Your gap teeth

make me smile unique

amongst the masses

of picket fences.

Your jagged pelvis

miraculously opened its gates

to allow another being

to pass through me

and enter into this world.

It is you who holds me,

steadies me.

It is you who carries me.

It is you who I love.

Day # 84: Loose Ends

# 84

This photo combines the elements of three seasons: Fall, Winter and Spring.  It is almost an organic collage.  Special.

I feel like there are a lot of loose ends on this blog.  Like, sweater stories, where are more sweater stories?  I actually received eight or nine of them.  Are there five more of my readers who can give me five sentences about an important sweater in their life?  

I have the first draft of three women's stories done tonight.  First, I am going to give them to my friend, Edite,  to see if they stand together.  I don't know why I am afraid they won't mix, (I can't even really name what it is I fear) that they won't read well side by side.  So once she's read them, I will send them to the interviewees and get any additions or corrections I need.  I am hoping to get some pictures this weekend and then I can post an Indiegogo fundraiser to support the rest of the writing process.  I have 14 interviews in process and another 2 scheduled.  I still am looking for a couple more and it is possible I will meet new people on Saturday.  So it is rolling along.  

Has anyone else begun the Tutu's book on forgiveness?  Has anyone done the exercises in the book? Anyone want to share their experiences?  I would love to have that as a thread on this blog.

As for picture taking, today I didn't get a lot taken, but I looked for some.  I went looking for my cardinals, but they were not showing their faces.  Someone saw larks, I don't think I have ever seen a lark around here, so I will look for them.  I know I am hearing at least seven calls early in the morning, but only the chickadees are visible.  Tomorrow I will go for a ride and find some.  Until then I have a lot of reading to do tonight, so I will wish everyone sweet dreams.

Aren't Vince's colors wonderful, today?

Day # 83: Community Sing

#83

This portrait is of my goddaughter, Kora.  She is fabulous.  She is a mom of a 6 month old at the moment.  This morning I met her at her local coop and found myself surrounded by young moms and their kids.   It was very energizing for me.   Here I am in the middle of this project where motherhood is so revered and such a loaded subject of both joy and pain.  It felt good to just be around babies and moms and new parenthood.   Kora's son is delightful and I loved having a morning to get to know him.  It was very helpful

The other thing I did today is go to a community sing in honor of Juanita Nelson who we all lost on March 9th.   I realize that I have written in this blog a few times now about how blessed I feel about living in this community.  Tonight I realized one of the major reasons that is true is because of the music scene.   Amandla is a chorus situated here in town that sings peace songs from all around the world.  They have sung with Mandela and the Seegers and Woody Guthrie and tons of others. Eveline MacDougall is the Director and she is really wonderful at leading these events.  I always feel like I am a member of a bigger community and a bigger world when I leave one and I look up into the sky and know I am part of a wonderful piece of the very large whole.  There is something about singing which draws the energy tight and focused and uplifting, even when it is sad.  I really am lucky.

Amandla 7/2013, photo by Lindy

So here is a shameless plug for them.  If you are looking for music to come to an event or to be in a line of concerts you are promoting, call Eveline, they really are good and worth it.   Here's their website.   You can listen a little, too.  The other thng is their cds are great, especially if you are homeschooling or trying to include music into your life.  Enjoy.

4 year olds know how to enjoy chocolate cake.

Day # 82: A poem for Monday

# 82

Melting has begun.  Yay!

Careful tears

roll down my cheek,

a  leak

in the tarp I've

placed over my head

to keep the sense

of a lost being

from boring into

my heart

like a woodpecker

who returns to the same

old tree stump

zeroes in on the

nest of insects;

making it bleed.

My heart bleeds

each November,

it bleeds

from a hole as

soft as silk.

Day # 81: Extended Family Love

# 81

How old are you today, Arthur Satz?  I think you are 86.  Can that be true?  When I was 25 you turned 50, so today you are 86.  How are you?  I will try again to reach out to you because you hold a very special place in the family.  You hold an unnamed place, one that we all agree upon, but don't know how to talk about.  You came into the families' life when I was 2 years old and you were a graduate student at Princeton, sent to help Daddy edit  his opera, The Bottle Imp.  You never left.  At Daddy's memorial service you played the piano, at Mommy's you spoke the last story, the conclusive tale.  You spoke of being in love with a family, a chaotic, crazy creative gang and how important we became to you.

Yet five years have gone by since Mom left us and I have spoken to you only twice.  I have mailed you some cards and a couple of siblings have reached out to you, but we've enjoyed no Thanksgiving dinner together nor have we celebrated a birthday or anniversary.

Why?  How can people this day and age who share such deep love and poignant experiences lose touch?  I know that sharing feelings has never been your favorite thing to do and I know that I have made you cry several times by being sentimental.

But also I know that the reason I was able to bring tears to your eyes was that you are a deep feeling man.

Happy Birthday, Art!

I hope we see each other this year.  You are remarkably important to me and I will always love you.

Day # 80: Gifts of March

#80

I was given a very special gift this morning.  Grandmothers Counsel The World, by Carol Schaefer.  This book is the story of thirteen Women Elders who came together from all over the globe to "offer their vision for our planet."  I've spent a good part of the day reading it.  Like my book, it is a collection of women's voices combined; it tells  stories of elder women who represent thirteen different cultures and ways of being in the world and their wisdom.   It is really powerful and speaks to what industrialization has done to the planet and what we need to do to help heal.  

I have an extremely strong desire to collect stories.  I have thought up at least three new projects today.  How can I sustain a life doing this?   But people need to know about different ways and different cultures, about exciting projects and communities, positive things that are happening all over,  that would move others if they just knew about what was going on.  There is so much change that is needed.  How do we get others to move and to work for the good of the planet?  I don't know, I just have this feeling that telling stories is a huge step.  

I needed to get out of the house and go take pictures.  When I woke up this morning there were three fresh inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing.  I went out anyway.  By the time Trace and I separated melting had already begun.  When I went out at 4:30 to photograph it was grey, but there was a distinct change in the amount of snow on the ground.  March marches on its mysterious way.

Non-frozen rivers, rushing water, visible rocks and mud, lots of mud, that is what I saw today.  

In a week I am going to a day of the American Adoption Association Congress conference in Cambridge where I hope to meet some of the women I am profiling.  I'm so excited.  I am going with Trace, who is presenting on the Lost Daughters panel.  I'm thrilled to be meeting Lost Daughters. Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy, who  has helped me with this project for a year now, and I have never met. We will next weekend.  How cool is that?  

I think a lot of work has been accomplished on the book and I have now really started creating the skeleton that will hold it all together.   Very excited!!!  I think that going to the conference will help me to begin to fill in some of the blanks I have.  It will give me a really nice arena to listen, to hear what others are talking and thinking about in the field.  And it will put my face and project together for others.  I really am looking forward to it.

Day #79: Happy Spring

#79

I'm kind of caught in the irony of life today.  Here is the EQUINOX, the first day of  a much needed Spring.  We enter Aries, my house.  It is time to clean around the flower beds and make room for new growth.  And in front of me is white stuff falling from the sky.  Highways are closed because of too many accidents and instead of birds talking loudly to each other, and to me, winter silence is taking over once more.

Kay and I went to the Bulb Show on Smith College Campus today.  It was beautiful.  The center displays were arranged around Monet colors and the smells were abundant.  We spent over an hour, walked through the rain forest and sat at the Japanese Garden.  Very sweet.  I love watching children play in there.  It was warm and full of wonder.

Then we walked out into a winter landscape and drove home the slow way to avoid the slippery roads.  

We immersed ourselves in the colors and smells of late Spring only to tease our bodies.  Spring did not spring today; instead, we fell back a few steps.  I now have to worry about my furnace again, because it looks like cold temperatures at night will prevail.

I post my bulb show pictures tonight representing hope, eternal hope, or maybe to tease my fellow New Englanders.  But enjoy.  The staff at the Smith College Greenhouse do a remarkably good job and every year I am grateful for them.

Day # 78: How to be needy?

#78

 3/19/2010

3/19/2011

3/19/2012

 3/19/2013

3/19/2014

I think there is a false idea about snow usually being gone by now.  I do remember that it had snowed the day before we went to the bulb show in 2010.  In 2011 it was the opening of my photo show, my first photo show.  It was a glorious day and friends planted daffodils in the gallery flower boxes.  I spent a lot of time with the heat off and the front door open.  In 2012 it was Gerard and Jean's show in the same gallery.  I think the weather was good for that show. But as you can see both '13 and '14 were snowy days.   Today was cold, the sky was an incredible blue.  But there is still plenty of snow on the ground and possibly more tomorrow.  No, March is not warm, nor snow free no matter what we try to remember.

3/19/2015

Day # 77; Healing Components of Friendship

#77

I have had a good day today.  I believe my cold is better and that the combined talents and forces of my friends and activities helped to heal me today.  I hung around all day with a beautiful piece of rose quartz on my body. I ate dinner with my favorite 14 year old, and I got out and took some pictures.  I did an interview with an original Mom and I saw my big brother for the first time in months.  So it was, it was a good day.  But I have no brain left.  SO I am posting an old poem of my own which I really like and two very early spring photos.   

Hands of Friendship

                                    Lindy Whiton 2006

What counts is the purple grasses

Beginning to die in the median

The brightness of orange in Black Eyed Susans

Just before their end

Sitting next to that purple grass

A painting by Wolf Kahn

Who creates that purple

That orange on his palette

            You place tiny fish stickers in the painting‘s river.

What counts are my friends

My silence

The strength of hands that

Invisibly surround my

Heart after its been pummeled

By death

What counts is a photo of Robert

Grieving and a child’s drawing of a happy world

Given to me on the same day.

Both penetrate the invisible hands

That surround my wounded heart.

What counts is the sea

How easy it is to meditate near.

I am unencumbered by vanity

Anxieties blocking my everyday breathing

The sea reaches far out into infinity

My eyes try to capture the end

But there is always something further

A rich brown head bobs up deciding

Where to splash his hard mammal

Body in search of a sea bass, or a mate

Or perhaps to watch the human meditate.

This is what counts

Children who squeal with glee

At what they figure out today

Or new confidence

An inspired story

Drawn from elements of their day

A long magical dream.

What counts is my hands

They count because they write

Touch

A finger that moves across his lips.

They count because they hold a teacup,

Unfold velvet.

They count because they warm up

Near the fire

What counts is the presence of grace.

                                    II.

The invisible presence of hands

Holding my heart as though

It was their own

Only letting things that feed, absorb

Through their delicate sinews.

The invisible presence of hands: some small, some

Large or wide piano player hands, age spots

Beginning to line them, some arthritis showing up,

Hands with scars from garden mishaps, or broken

Glasses in the sink.  Men’s hands that still work,

Less dependent on eye sight which is beginning to

Blur; still steady enough to hold the thread if only

He could see the eye.  Hands with painted nails, or

Dirt covering them, still some chewed off nubs and

Lines that map out middle age.

These hands embrace each other

Circle around the fleshy mass,

This bloody fleshy mass

            That was bludgeoned

            Needs to heal.

They encircle it like

            hands around a mug.

Day # 76: A New Keyboard

#76

My friend, Kay, gave me a new keyboard today.  Very cool.  Thank you, Kay.  You made me a happy kid.

I'm struggling with doing justice to the stories I am hearing.   I just watched a movie called, Closure, (link is below).  It was so beautifully done.  It was so attentive to all sides of the triad, plus.  It really moved beyond good and bad and went to how things were.  I really liked it.  It is so easy for others to judge why we do  something.  It is much more difficult to suspend judgement and truly understand.  Thank you C.U.B. for posting it.  If you get a chance readers, watch it through.  It is worthwhile.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/682410

I also really loved this picture on their status today.  It's great.  I actually started getting a little nervous about going to the conference in 10 days and meeting people.  You'd think that going to a conference with this unique population would make me happy and not nervous.  When it is all over and done I am sure that will be my experience, but anticipation always gets me.

I am still looking for three more original mothers to interview for my book.  I would love it if they were non-white.  I want the group to be diverse and I have some diversity, but not enough.  If you or someone you know is interested, please have them contact me by e-mail (lindy.whiton@gmail.com).

I am going to begin writing my Indiegogo tonight.  One thing that I know I want to do is research other Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects dealing with adoption.  I did a little of that last time, but I think I need to be more formal about it because people have done some interesting projects that can inform my project.   Closure was a Kickstarter projecct.

The wind is blowing hard out there and March really doesn't want to give up winter.  It has to, the Equinox is right there in front of us, we are in the home stretch; but winter is fighting back.  I have looked for a snow rainbow two evenings in a row.  No luck, not even on St. Pattys Day

Day # 75: Broken Keyboard

#75

Lots of babies in the market today.  I had to keep my distance too, because my cold is hanging on.  I took a few pictures and then came home.  Scheduled two more interviews and wrote up a story.  I had to do it by hand because my keyboard is really broken now.  Typing is a pain in the neck.  So instead of any more text, you can have a few more pictures.  Promise I will buy a new keyboard tomorrow.  Bare with me folks.  

Anyone have a sweater story they want to post?

3/16/2010

3/16/2010