Day # 120: Leyden

#120

Grateful for:

1) living in Western Massachusetts where the world is beautiful.

2) a young friend who  loves to continue my habit of riding in the wilderness

3) noodles

4) being part of many lives

5) being able to make a friend a present

Looking over to New Hampshire high up on a mountain waiting to see a large bird soar. Only large bird we saw was a goose, they don't do too much soaring. 

this view should be very familiar to one of my readers.

I wrote for a few hours today.  I sent one story to its interviewee.  Another one can probably be sent tomorrow, two more right behind it.  It is coming along, but it is much slower than I ever assumed.  

Day # 119: Birthdays Everywhere

#119

I have completed all of the interviews I had lined up.  I still need a couple of more to complete the picture in the way I am seeing it at the moment.  If you are an original Mom or know one who might be interested in being a part of this project, please refer them to me via this blog.  

Writing them has been so interesting.  I've almost got 4 first drafts.  I should have enough information and writing done to launch the indiegogo as planned.  These first drafts will go back to the person they are written about for corrections and feedback and then I will do a second draft.  I am looking for 16,000 dollars to do the traveling, hire an editor and keep myself from going homeless.  Watch out for the posting.

4/29/10

4/29/11

4/29/13

4/29/14

4/29/15

I know more people who were born on this day than on any other one day.  I'd love to know the astrological significance of that.   Anyway, Happy Birthday, ANNIE QUEST, my oldest and dearest friend.

and HAPPY BIRTHDAY:  Susie Arnold, Bob Pura, Michele Sedor, Tom Durkin, Mia Bissette, Joe Connelly, Will Wooton, and everyone else born on this beautiful day.  The previous photos show that it is usually a stunning blue day with daffodils and trees budding out.  Glorious.   Happy Birthday.

Share with all of your New York friends.  New York adoptees are trying to pass a similiar bill that Ohio just passed.  They need all the support they can get.  Share this link with anyone you think would be moved by it.

I am getting to the point where I believe I need to reach out to my daughter again.  These stories are all powerful   Wait until you meet this group of courageous and powerful women I have interviewed from all over this country.

Day #118: A Day Documented

#118

How often does the moon appear full?

3 days in 30? 

a tenth of the time?

4/28/10

April is waning
silent full moon appears soon
jumping into May

May blooms greenery
dogwood, magnolia, cherry
too bright for tender eyes

4/28/11

4/28/12

April speeds past me
fixing the land for vacation
sprouting
blowing
soaking
fidgeting

My eyes so used to grey
now open wide for
pinks
lavender
yellow
green

4/28/13

4/28/14

4/28/15

Day #117: Poem Week, Day 2

Day 117

This is what I do best.

Can one ever know

their own voice?

Does it sound to you

the way it sounds to others sitting next to you

in the soprano section?

It doesn't quite squeak, but instead

like an overly used oboe reed,

like a slight crack in the recorder

a piccolo whose player has lost control of her lips,

your voice tightens and the ahhh becomes, ehhh.

Can I ever know?

I need to be grateful tonight.  I am grateful for

1) love

2) the chance to watch children learn

3) my collection of children's books

4)  Emma

5) that my parents exposed me to such an array of music.

Day # 116: Poem Week

#116

 Woods

Looking like it needs a trim

scraggly, split ends

Buds beginning to appear

Around

Open flesh wounds

Broken arms

Left gaping after winters

Rage

Old dried leaves

Still visible on the forest floor

Twigs

And logs and lengths

Of rotting wood

Leaves will grow

green

And hide the scars

Camouflage the ravaged woods

And moss and fern will line

Rivers bend

to feed the earth again. 

A poem week: poem number one. 

4/26/2010

The chicken whisperer

Day #115: New Color

#115

I am grateful for
1) company to see a good movie with
2) a good movie
3) a peep hole into understanding oneself better
4) Haiku
5) French toast

Saw Woman In Gold tonight.  Loved it.  I recommend that you do see it.  

4/25/2010

a selfie and Christina and Giraffe

 We brought Christina and two other giraffes home from Tampa on an airplane.  A man sitting in front of us knew all about them.  He showed Emma their eyelashes and told them how powerful they are and how weak their necks actually are.  They all live in my house now, the whole giraffe family.  They are my nighttime company.  Thanks, gang.

Day # 114: Change of Living Paradigm

#114

Did you see the photo of Archbishop Tutu and the Dali Lama dancing together?  Boy, do I wish I had taken those photos, I wish I had been there with them.  I would love to have them for dinner.  I suppose the menu would be difficult, but I'd want Judi Dench there, also, and Jimmy Carter.  I used to play the game of "who would you invite to dinner if you could have any ten people" with Mom on rides.  My list has changed with each stage of life, with each new passion or focus.  My focus now is wisdom.  I'm not quite old enough to be one of the wise women, but I am old enough to appreciate them

I've been thinking about organizing an old ladies home.  If I could buy a one story house with a few bedrooms and some wide open living space I would invite a couple of the older women I know to join me so that they would not be living alone, but would still have space and privacy and wisdom. They would have others to go to medical appointments with and to remind them to take their Vitamin D and to eat properly.  I would have people with whom to eat properly.  This is my newest obsession. Of course, at the same time I cannot imagine sharing space again.  I grew up with 6 other children and went immediately to living in group situations.  When Jason went off to Japan to live i was faced with living alone and I was incredibly frightened.  But now I cannot imagine not having my own space.  And I know that that is becoming a luxury and too expensive for all of us, and being a member of a home environment is probably not the worst idea.

I also still think about running a home for parenting teens.  If I just had a little bit more energy, I would do it.  I would run a program that was set up as a living situation with good child care attached to it.   Once a program creator always a program creator.  It gets caught in your bones and you can't ever rinse it out entirely.

I read my 2010 blog from this week.  Mom was in the hospital in New Haven 5 years ago.  I wrote about this male nurse who got Mom from the beginning and saw that even though she was having difficulty speaking, her mind was in tact and she had plenty of wisdom to share if you were interested.  He was.  Mom had a certain smile that was extremely engaging, people flocked to that smile.  She didn't want crowds around her, but she knew how to draw someone out, she knew how to listen.  She would smile and strangers would come to meet her.  By April 2010 she was gaunt and you would have thought that smile had lost its power, but for this nurse it was still there.  That day she told me about terrible nightmares, though.  Her dreams were like bad trips.  But awake and interacting with her nurse she was present and at peace.

4/24/2010

 I'm almost to the point where I can share some pieces of stories.  I will do one more grateful list and then I will do another week of poems.  By then I hope to begin to share adoption stories.  We will be a third through 2015.  Time is rushing by all of a sudden.  Keep your eyes open for the stories and please feel free to comment.   I need some comments, readers.

Day #113: More Gratitude

#113

 I am grateful for:
1) happy girls
2) books, books and more books
3) lovely music while watching snow clouds roll by
4) poetry sharing
5) stretches of time to write in

This is what I was grateful for 5 years ago today. 

I have to do my grateful for activity now, for I am weepy.

I am grateful for my ability to talk about how people feel
I am grateful that I was raised by a woman who embodies tolerance, in a home where tolerance was the expected way of being, whether for each other, for racial difference, religious difference, or food differences, we were expected to understand and accept those differences, support them in each other. I know that her father had expected that of her, too. 
I am grateful for all of those museums I was dragged through as a little girl.
I am grateful for the green outside my window this morning.

Day #112:Define Tribe Returns

#112

The clouds were dramatic this morning.  The wind was high this afternoon.  We have had some rain this evening, but none of it has amounted to anything here.  I think its a metaphor for life. 

Can we go back to talking about tribe?  If you hang around in adoptionland for any length of time you realize that your definition of family has to change.  If you're an adoptee you wrestle with having a family, but wanting to know your kin and some, when they are in reunion, have to work at enlarging the definition of family for themselves.  People struggle constantly with fear of rejection and fear of being dropped, no longer counted as family.  Rejection is sprinkled throughout peoples' lives. But what seems to be successful is changing your notion of family and making room for everyone.  I'm not sure if this large entity can be called tribe, I actually believe tribe is the communities that circle family.  But I do know, that those who are finding peace in all of the chaos of adoption are increasing their understanding of family.  They are making room for more love in their lives, not more demands.  It is hard work.

Kelsey has many arms on her family model.  She is an adoptee and a "birthmother."  Her mother (A) is an adoptee, too.  They have both found and have relationships with their birthmoms and the adoptive family of Kelsey's son.  Language becomes fascinating when she speaks of any member of this group.  The one thing I did notice was she refers to the woman who raised her as "Mom"" consistently.  She refers to the woman who gave birth to her as her birthmom and she refers to herself as her son's mom.  He is her son.  There are very strong parameters around her relationship with her son's family.  She is a member of that community.  

4/22/2010

My tiny daffodils have bloomed. YAY.   I think we are 10 days behind 2010 in terms of the onslaught of Spring.  There is a magnolia tree in bloom in Amherst.  And I did see one full of buds today, but we are still struggling with snow in the forecast and a grayness for 3 days which I think is contributing to my lackluster personality this week.

Define tribe for me.  Write your definition in the comment section below.  

Day #111: Two Sides of a Coin

#111

These pictures represent two sides of the coin of life; the complexity of fashion and human endeavor and the simplicity of nature and potential for humankind.  Today I felt overwhelmed by the dichotomy of the coin.  I was so aware of materialism, of the material wants in my life, yet the need to be simple, and simplify my life.  I am afraid that my disability will not allow me to do the things I want to do in the next 20 years.  I've amassed so much in the last 20 years, now I need to rid myself of a lot of it in order to be able to travel and do the things I want to do, including volunteer for Elephants On the Border.

Listen to Mary Oliver

I am surprised by my unhappiness.  My book is going so well.  I believe it will be done in six months.  I just need to keep going, keep my face forward and all that.  One step at a time.....  Some times it is just plain difficult.  Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed.  Tomorrow is another day.

4/21/2010

Edite's apple tree

Day #110: A Hectic Monday

#110

Emma got her hair cut today.  We had a nice day, but it was hectic and, of course, we had rehearsal this evening.  It was a fun long day.

  4/20/2010

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsPogPCAz7g

Somebody teach me how to embed a video. 

I tried to post Katie Sachs' video, Underwear Model.  It's really fun.  That's the address, but I can't seem to post it right.  Picture #110 from 2010 was taken at a poetry reading where these two women, who I met writing, were in the audience with me.  Since then they both have accomplished a lot.  Katie's video is a good example and soon I will get Karina's permission to post a poem.  

Last week I posted a picture of these three playing.  Here they are five years ago December.

Tomorrow I will post an update on the book.  I need 2 more women to interview.  I will post the Indiegogo soon in order to fund the next stage ; the photography portion of the book.  It will also give me portions of the book with which to approach publishers.  Again, anyone with publisher ideas please contact me.  This book is coming together really well.  I can't wait to begin to share it

I have also almost completed a poetry manuscript.  That should be ready to submit by June.  And my show will hang in June.  Now I just have to figure out how to pay for the summer.   

Day # 109:More Pictures

#109

I’d forgotten how pretty he was

I’d not forgotten how soft his skin felt.

nor the gentle kisses on the back porch in Berkeley.

But I’d forgotten how pretty he was.

I can still hear his slight Southern accent

His slow speech

His warm arm resting near me

Always near me.

 Don’t remember the end

A Risk game never completed

on the dining room table on Butterfield Rd.

An attempt at skinny dipping with another girl.

I’d forgotten how pretty he was.

I’d forgotten how much his laugh

Comforted me, how in love I was;

Taller in my brown suede cowboy boots

He sang me Cris Williamson

I don’t remember anything

About the way we parted.

I’d forgotten how pretty he was.  

Day # 108: Sharing Poems

#108

April Is National Poetry Month

Tonight I bring two poems, one is by Jay Davis, the other written for my birthday by my niece, Grace.  Thank you both for letting me post them.

POTATOES
A family of potatoes lives under my sink.
They huddle there like wretched immigrants
in the hold of my kitchen, eyeing anyone
who peers down there with suspicion.
Despite the language barrier, they persist.
The more industrious put down roots.
They wear the same brown shabby coats
they brought from the old country,
though one or two are wrinkled now
from sleeping in them every night.
When the cupboard door is closed
I sense them in there, huddling closer,
muttering in their dark dialect, comforting
one another, whispering their dreams.
~Jay Davis

Her House is a Treasure Box

          By Grace VanSteenburg

She surrounds herself

 with what she loves. 
Her little white house

 is a treasure box,

 toys and trinkets,

 heirlooms and artwork,

mementos and books

 grow

 in piles around the perimeters

of each room

 engulfing the floor and the furniture.

 At any location,

my eyes are stimulated

by this wonderful, dusty puzzle

 enclosing around me.

A turtle made of

 thousands of tiny

 blue and green beads.

 Hundreds of photographs,

framed and unframed,

of frogs,

and of trees,

and of birds,

 and of lovely people. 
Funky earrings dangling

on a piece of lace

 on the wall.

Dead goldfish in the freezer.

Paintings

 by children and masters

 hang side-by-side.

Elephants!

Elephants everywhere!

 Large, bulky elephants.

Elephants the size

 of my pinky tip.

Marble elephants.

 Carved wooden elephants.

Psychedelically

painted elephants.

The strangest herd

you’ve ever seen.

 Her house is a treasure box

for she surrounds herself

with Love.