March Madness and A Walk on the Mild Side

Tags

Adaptability, adoptee, Art, Covid, Covid-19, food, labyrinth walking, Naw Ruz, photography, Tehran, Tibet, Travel, writing

(This is a republication of the March posting from 2023). March seems to be a month of “Anything Goes.” During this end of winter/beginning of spring, a lot happens: Change to Daylight Saving, Tax preparation, collecting seeds for spring gardening, St. Patrick’s Day, Oscar’s Night, the Ides of March. Here is Santa Fe, as we begin Spring, the weather is wildly unpredictable. One day it’s warm and sunny, the next may bring several inches of snow.

In Tehran, where I lived in the 1960s, March signaled the beginning of a new Year. Naw Ruz (pronounced “No Ruse”), was, and still is, a time for festivities and exchanging gifts. It is a day recognized around the world. Occurring at the Spring Equinox, it has been celebrated for over 3,000 years. The celebration dates back to the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism.

My older son was born in Tehran right before Naw Ruz. Iranian friends and American friends who were also living in Tehran — brought flowers and presents to the house. For my first Naw Ruz, I was immersed in mothering, somewhat oblivious to everything else. Later, I would learn of the custom of the laying out of symbolic greens and leaping over a fire.

The “haft seen” table  includes seven symbolic items all starting the with an “s” sound: sabzeh, senjed, sib, seer, samanu, serkeh, and sumac. •Sabzeh (sprouted wheat grass) symbolizes rebirth and renewal; Samanu (sweet pudding) stands for affluence and fertility;  Senjed (sweet, dried lotus tree fruit) represents love. Leaping over a fire the last Wednesday before Naw Ruz allegedly brought good luck. I was too busy nursing my brand new son to set a proper haft seen table or leap over a fire, but I was fascinated to learn of these customs.

In addition to remembering Naw Ruz, I’ve recently had the unwelcome experience of coming down with Covid. Fortunately, a light case. Walking my way back to health, I was strolling about Santa Fe Plaza last week — definitely a “walk on the mild side” — when I encountered peaceful protesters walking to save Tibet. The day was beautiful, and though spectators were few in number, I felt confident that awareness was being raised. The Tibet supporters seemed a fitting welcome to the change of seasons.

Meanwhile, come rain or shine, the neighbor’s brass Samuri stands guard over my part of town.

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on the writing, hiking and the outdoors, Santa Fe life, and the world as seen through adoption-colored glasses. Check out her newest novel The Hand of Ganesh. Follow adoptees Clara Jordan and Dottie Benet in their  quest to find Dottie’s birthparents. Order today from Amazon. Her three India novels, The Beast of Bengal, All the Wrong Places and The Hand of Ganesh are available as audiobooks from Audible.com. And thanks for reading! 

Love Letter Straight from the Heart

Tags

adoption, CBI Theater, Gratitude, Letters, Love, reunion, WWII

White roses were my mom’s favorite flower

My adoption history begins with a 1930s love story, that of my adoptive parents Richard and Reva Beard. They’d been teenage sweethearts in Findlay, Ohio, they married in 1937, and they put off starting their family until my father-to-be earned his doctorate from Ohio State University.

For six years, while Richard earned his PhD in clinical psychology, Reva taught elementary school. When it turned out that they were not able to have children, they decided to adopt. The outbreak of World War II, however, further delayed the formation of a family.

Richard wrote about Calcutta, life at the 142nd General Hospital and missing “home, wife, and love”

Richard was drafted and sent to India. He served as a clinical psychologist in charge of a neuropsychiatric ward at the 142nd General Hospital in Calcutta, part of the China-Burma-India theater of the WWII. For 18 months, my future adoptive parents were separated by 6,000 miles. My mother-to-be lived at home with her parents in Findlay, Ohio. She continued to teach school and inquired into adopting a baby. Without a dad in the home, however, adoption proved impossible.

Reva waited at home for the war to end

Devoted to one another for a lifetime, Richard and Reva exchanged letters every day of their wartime separation. Sometimes they alluded to adopting a child; Always they reaffirmed their strong love and devotion for one another. My divorced birth mother attended college where Richard was a guidance counselor. As far as I can tell, she asked him to help her by taking my brother and me. I was five and my brother nearly two.

Years later as I read through my parents’ wartime letters, I was moved and inspired by the depth of their love.

Here is one of my favorite Richard and Reva epistles:

Calcutta, India
May 29, 1945

Dearest Reva,
You asked why I had white roses delivered to you on May 16. It was a sentimental and romantic gesture in which the traditional meaning of the colors of flowers was invoked. But to my way of thinking I could as well offer a white rose upon the altar of my love for you each day. Purity is as much a lovely characteristic of your being today as it was the first time I touched your hand in 1930. By some miracle, your contact with life—with me— has not coarsened you. I reflect upon you and me in the car under the moonlight, in the front room listening to “Moon River,” and in the bed we have shared, I am aware that I have approached you each time as a man who knows his love for the first glorious union of body and soul

How much our separation has meant to me I dare not put on paper. Perhaps, just before I sail for home, I may try. But rather by far that I be permitted to demonstrate in a real way what I mean. You will not have to cling to me, you are me.

Perhaps in all this I am idealizing, but I think not. this low, weary year has given me time to consider many things, the significance of which has been blurred in the past. Clearcut, sharp and pure, etched against the certificate of our union as a palm tree silhouettes against the blue of a late Indian evening, is the world-crashing, world-engulfing, between-you-and-me eternal fact: I am so glad that you married me.

Goodnight, precious Ritter. I’ll help moisten that pillow soon, from which I have so often seen your large brown lovely eyes watching me. They are looking down on me now, Reva.

In devotion,
Dick

I’ve recounted my adoptive parents’ story in From Calcutta with Love-The WWII Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. Their love for each other became a gift of love for me.

Originally published in 2022 by Texas Tech University Press, From Calcutta with Love sold out a decade ago. It was acquired by Pajarito Press (Los Alamos, New Mexico) and will appear in a new edition in spring of 2024.

Julie’s Adoption Story

Tags

Adopted daughter, adoption, rejection issues

“Secondary rejection” is a well-known term in the adoption world. It refers to the disappointment, hurt, or rejection that adoptees and/or birth relatives experience as they attempt to connect with family members they lost to adoption. The first rejection is adoption itself, which adoption writer, Nancy Verrier, aptly termed the “primal wound.”

A secondary rejection shows up when: 

– a birth mother is reluctant to share the secret of an unplanned pregnancy with a spouse or family member

– a birth parent or adoptee declines to facilitate introductions to relatives and friends 

– health history and background information are not exchanged

– birth relatives are unwilling to inform/include biological family in daily activities, holidays, or special events

Secondary rejection is also a phone call that goes too long unreturned, or a letter that goes unanswered for months. These slights, big or small, are yet another wound to a heart that is already compromised.

When I first reached out to my birth mom in 2011, I experienced my first secondary rejection. It came in the form of a terse note to my intermediary. My birth mother denied contact with my twin sister and me, and then she demanded that we never reach out again. It took me months to peel myself off the ground. As a mom myself, I couldn’t understand how a mother could treat her child in such an unloving, disrespectful manner. 

Eventually, my birth mom changed her mind and phoned the intermediary to initiate contact. Our first get together was glorious, mind-boggling, and affirming. Within weeks, our relationship blossomed; the sensation was much like falling in love. The honeymoon period of our reunion continued for months, but then the inevitable happened. I experienced unreturned phone calls, misinformation, and a refusal to widen the circle of “who knows.”  

The first time my twin sister and I visited my birth mom in her new senior living complex, she asked that we phone her when we arrived and to wait in the lobby. We were told not to sign in at the front desk. Over lunch at a nearby cafe, she confessed her fear about our writing in the center’s guestbook. Next to our names was an obligatory space for “relationship to resident.” She admitted that no one at the senior center knew about the two daughters she had born out of wedlock and placed for adoption. After lunch, we strolled back to her apartment. To everyone we encountered in the hallway, she introduced us as “relatives visiting from Chicago.” 

When I returned home, I called the social worker who leads my post adoption support group. She reminded me to treat myself with kindness and to surround myself with people who behave in a loving manner. And once I was ready to establish a healthy connection with my birth mom, I needed to set boundaries with her. 

I worried, of course, that my pushback would anger my birth mom and jeopardize our relationship. I picked up the phone, and as I had been coached to do, I expressed how her recent behavior had marginalized me. She made no apology and hung up. Months elapsed before we spoke again.

During our estrangement, I wore down the soles of my sneakers. I reflected. I meditated. I journaled. And I never missed an adoption support group meeting. At these sessions, the social worker, my fellow adoptees, and birth mothers in attendance helped me to understand something important that would help bridge our impasse: the trauma of being an unwed mother in the 1950s, and the safeguarding of that shameful secret for a lifetime had formed my mother’s personality and behavior. Her pain ran deep. That would never change. Nor would her fear of being judged and shamed by those around her. If I wanted to stay in a relationship with her, I needed to compromise.

The reunion with my birth mom is now in its second decade. My sister and I achieved this milestone by shifting our expectations. In turn, my birth mother is more considerate of our feelings. For our relationship to have reached this stage of growth, we had to let hurt and anger slip away and allow compassion to fill the void. 

Now that we have surmounted these obstacles, I grieve for my birth mom. I grieve for all of us, because of all that transpired and all that might have been. 

Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She explores the topics of finding out who you are, where you belong and making sense of it. She is the author of two books: Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging, and Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship. Her third book, Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood releases in February 2025.

GLOW CLUB Turns 45 and Other News

Tags

adopting change, breakfast, brunch, food, friends, Friendship, Glow Club, leaving home, Moving, restaurant

Nearly half a century ago, a group of women in my neighborhood founded a running and brunch club. I was one of those Founding Mothers. Actually, most of us were runners then. Today, it’s mainly walking. We met at a different home each month, ran three to five miles, and returned to enjoy a potluck brunch. Recently, at my house, we celebrated our founding. More about the house later.

Why, you might be wondering, did we choose the name “Glow Club,” rather than something like “Santa Fe Strollers” or “Women Walkers.” It’s because of longtime member Dede, who quipped, “Men sweat but women glow.” Now, though our numbers have dwindled, we are still walking and glowing.

As the decades rolled by. we formed deep and lasting friendships. We’ve celebrated birthdays and holidays, seen one another through good times and bad. We’ve celebrated nature around us— the arroyos (dry riverbeds), garden areas, parks, open spaces and hills. Glow Club created the cookbook Brunch on the Run, edited by Dorothy. It’s full of favorites throughout the years. We’ve shared frittatas, cobblers, quiches, fruit compotes, casseroles, pies, cakes and cookies and all manner of vegetable recipes. Several Glow Clubbers are avid gardeners, treating us, in summer, to homegrown tomatoes, carrots, zucchini and cucumbers.

Gathering with friends. (I’m third from the left and Dorothy is in the front.)

What else is happening? As so often in life, there’s the joy and the sadness. I reported in my last post that I was putting my house on the market. In just one day, a couple came along who fell in love the place. They signed a contract. The closing would have been in early February. Unfortunately, these potential buyers terminated. No deal, and I’m back to square one. My realtor and I are waiting until March to list the house again. This is actually a blessing, as it gives me much-needed time to get rid of “stuff”. Room by room, I’m emptying drawers, closets, cabinets, file cases, and chests. I’m clearing out shelves; removing pictures from the wall, donating to charities. A portion of the stuff, especially favorite books, I’ll take with me. Take-alongs are being boxed, labeled, and stored in the garage. Some things will be thrown out.

I’m discovering books that I never got around to — finally reading them. I’m adopting a wait and see attitude about the house sale. It will happen when the time is right, probably by Spring.Where will I be after the house sells? None of the adult communities I’ve applied for have vacancies, so that remains to be decided. But of one thing I’m sure, Glow Club will go on!

Join Elaine each month for her latest musings on life through adoption-colored glasses. Her three India novels — Beast of Bengal, All the Wrong Places, and The Hand of Ganesh— are now available through Audible in virtual narrations. Free with an Audible membership. Hard copies can be ordered from Amazon. Her book of WWII letters is reappearing:Originally published in 2022 by Texas Tech University Press, From Calcutta with Love sold out a decade. It was acquired by Pajarito Press (Los Alamos, New Mexico) and will be out in Spring of 2024.

Saying Goodbye to the House

Tags

a new chapter, Adaptation, adoption, fresh start, house, house for sale, memories, simplifiying

The good news is that I’ve decided to sell my house and move to a senior community. I look forward to a simpler life. The bad news is that I’ve just spent my last Christmas at the old place and it leaves me feeling nostalgic, bereft, and sad. I will miss the beautiful, rambling ranch-style home that’s taken care of me for 49 years.

It’s not that I wanted to leave but the time had come for a smaller place, a simpler lifestyle that would allow more time to write. Less time maintaining a large house and yard. I turned 80. As I entered another decade, I realized that the time was now. Now, while I’m fit and of sound mind. Time to downsize.

When the process is complete, I can return to the novel that isn’t writing itself. The Ganesh Girls find Happiness is knocking at my door. Some portions exist in handwritten snippets, but the actual writing seems to be squeezed out by this business of moving. As I prepare to relocate, I’m divesting myself of stuff. Way, way, way too much stuff.

Downsizing the library

De-acquisitioning, I think it’s called. I’m well underway. Books have been the hardest. First I tried donating to libraries. All local branches said they had too many books and not enough storage space. Gradually, options appeared. My collection of more than 1,000 beloved volumes has been sold at garage sales, donated, given to friends. I have boxed up several hundred that I wasn’t able to part with (I’ll take them with me to my next venue), and I’m keeping a complete set of novels by Charles Dickens.

And where will I live next? The next venue: That is the question. I’ve applied to the two best senior communities here in Santa Fe, but so far there are no vacancies. I may consider renting an apartment or subletting until my top choice, The Monticito, has a vacancy. There are several options, but nothing yet is definite. Not worried, I agree with Wilkins Micawber of David Copperfield, who often quips, “Something will turn up.”

Edna the deer says goodbye

And so…goodbye to the old; hello to the new and unknown. There are many maintenance chores and upkeep expenses I will happily leave behind. I’ll miss Sun Mountain, my nearby familiar hiking spot. I will long to see the backyard deer herd that’s populated my acreage for generations. I looked forward to visits from my favorite critters —Jake, Edna, Henry, Jane and their progeny. It’s fun to think they know the names I’ve given them. I’ve seen fawns grow from newborns on wobbly legs to teenagers, then adults.

I’ll miss the backyard labyrinth I built decades ago, the apple and pear trees, the raised bed gardens (great for growing herbs), the sunset views, the lovely serenity of my home. But in the future, I’ll have a simple apartment somewhere, a cosy office dedicated to writing, and I’ll still be able to hike and visit with friends. That said, I will be adopting a new chapter. One door is closing but another will open.

Elaine Pinkerton, the author of nonfiction and fiction books, is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In her award-winning blog site The Goodbye Baby, she writes about books, travel, nature and seeing the world through adoption colored glasses. Elaine’s novels can be ordered from Pocol Press or Amazon. Follow her blog for the newest posts. If you know of anybody who is interested in buying a beautiful home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, please refer them to Michael D’Alfonso at Barker Realty at 505-670-8201 or dalfonso0007@gmail.com.

Letting Go of the Perfect Holiday

Tags

Acceptance, adoption, Christmas, expectations, families, gifts, Nostalgia

By: Emily Shirley

This is a re-publication originally posted December 2022.

We have all seen the Folgers commercial where the big brother comes home from college and starts making coffee. As the coffee smell reaches upstairs, the family comes down to greet him. They are all smiles in the perfectly decorated home with this perfect holiday moment of love all around and… well, perfection.

In other Christmas commercials, the adult children with their perfect families drive up, all smiles and carrying gifts. The food somehow magically appeared without anyone shopping for days, standing on their feet preparing for hours, and stressing over.

I have been guilty of trying to have the holiday depicted in commercials. But I have decided to be honest with myself this year. Those commercials were made up by someone, and many people are doing what I used to do, pretending to have their own version of a ‘perfect Christmas’ because others tell them this is how this season and Christmas Day is supposed to be.

It’s media like the commercials that creates an unrealistic expectation for holiday perfection, that hijacks the moments we could be having with others, or even spending the day alone. And it is this kind of emotional feed that makes us think we have fallen short if our Christmas doesn’t look like the commercials. We get upset with our adult children for not being what the commercials have told us they should be. And what about those people whose lives have changed, and they no longer fit the mold of the families in the commercials. What about the single parents, or those that have lost their spouse, or even children, due to death.

Many older parents are feeling left out of their adult children’s lives at this time of the year. Perhaps these adult children are behaving in ways the parents don’t understand. This can happen when we have certain unrealistic expectations that are not met by someone else. The more likely explanation for their not involving their parents more than they do is that they are working very hard to have their own version of a ‘perfect’ holiday.

We think of Christmas as the season dedicated to everything merry and bright. But let’s face it. Sometimes, it can also be one of the most stressful times of the year. Most of us want a little holiday magic, whether it’s conscious or unconscious. What if the magic happens in the simple moments that we often miss because of our heightened expectations causing this to be a stressful time of the year?  One of the first things we can do is admit that Christmas will never be perfect, or like any of the commercials. They never have been, and they never will be.

We can give ourselves credit for all those “almost-perfect” Christmases that we provided for our children, and others. Now, we can enjoy seeing others having whatever version of Christmas they want for themselves, while we enjoy our own version of this holiday. We can stay home, relax, and simplify things. If decorating is too much to do every year, we can even consider taking a year or two off and just decorating every three or four years, if ever. There are no Christmas police!

The real gift we have at this stage in our life is experience that allows us to step back and accept how things are. We can relax and be grateful for what we have and think about those ‘Christmases past’ that we survived. Rather than stressing over what we must do, we can be grateful for what we don’t have to do. We should all remember the real reason-for-the-season, and beyond that, this day can be focused on young children. It is nice to be able to take it easy. We can even meet up with friends and go to a nice restaurant for dinner, and walk away from the table and not have to clean up after ourselves.

Our gift to ourselves should be to get through the next few weeks without guilt for not participating in this season the same way others are. We can let go of some of the unrealistic ‘magical thinking’ of the past. It is time to adjust our expectations and embrace our own imperfect holiday. We can practice self-care through the holidays by carving out time each day to do whatever reconnects us with ourselves. This is especially important if we are alone this time of the year. 

The magic is there. We must be willing to look for it. We can do our version of this holiday season, based on the season of our lives. The part of the Folgers commercial we should consider is relaxing with a nice cup of hot coffee, Folgers or otherwise, and breathing in that coffee smell, while we munch on store-bought cookies that someone else made. 

About Today’s Guest Contributor:

World traveler and master gardener Emily Shirley is a part time resident of Louisiana and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Writing all the while, she divides her time between two homes. Past careers include Social Services Case Worker and Director and Human Resource Manager. She is currently at work on a memoir titled And Then There Were Ten.

Join Elaine on Mondays for reflections on the writing, hiking and the outdoors, Santa Fe life, and the world as seen through adoption-colored glasses. Check out her newest novel The Hand of Ganesh. Follow adoptees Clara Jordan and Dottie Benet in their  quest to find Dottie’s birthparents. Order today from Amazon or www.pocolpress.com. And thanks for reading!

Adoption: Still my “Something”

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, discover, empower, healing, separation, wounded

Note from Elaine: November will soon be gone. “Busy” doesn’t begin to describe life.  I am leaving my home of 50 years, moving to a Santa Fe senior living community. De-acquisitioning 80 years’ worth of accumulation, starting with books. Holding garage sales, I’m whittling down a 1,000-book collection – finding good homes for cherished volumes. It fills me with joy to see my books go out in the arms of fellow bibliophiles.  I’ll keep my top hundred books for the future,  smaller new digs. In the meantime, I am re-running a post from the past. Clara Jordan, the protagonist of All the Wrong Places, is ME. She’s gone to India in The Hand of Ganesh, and she and her soul sister Arundati, will reappear in the newest novel, about which you’ll be reading more. Stay tuned!

It’s been said that trauma is not a mystery, that it attaches itself to you in a way that’s hard to undo. My story, as related in The Goodbye Baby, offers living proof. Being an adoptee has added melodrama to my life, created a passion for writing, and ultimately inspired me to take off the masks and to discover who I really am.

Though I was fortunate enough to land in an adoptive family who loved and cherished me, it could not make up for losing that first “mother connection.” My birth mother and I said goodbye before I started first grade, and I waited 38 years for her to come back into my life. I was deeply wounded by the separation.

My struggles have been with feeling abandoned, isolated, and rejected. I’ve worried for years that I will be misunderstood and that I’m simply not good enough- as a daughter, a friend, a partner, a mother, or even as a human being.

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With my infant son in Greece

Because of being adopted, I felt small and insignificant. Probably because adoption wasn’t something my family discussed, my negative assumptions became deeply embedded. Throughout my adult years, I accomplished a great deal, but in my mind, I was never admirable. Harmful pangs of inadequacy took root and shaped my outlook, my decisions, my disastrous romantic choices.  Until I re-read my diaries, I never realized that I myself had invented the self-damaging myth.

How did I deal with my adoption-induced complexes? My adoptive parents had to raise a delinquent teenager who drank excessively, stayed out too late and attracted bad boyfriends. As I grew older, I tended to be an over-achiever: running nine marathons to lower my finishing time, yet always “keeping score” and endlessly coming up short.

Thirty years ago, when I first started to write about my adoption, the title of my book was Reunions. My plan was to meet both my biological parents and write about finding the missing puzzle pieces. I met my original parents, but the reunions were not what I hoped for.  The pieces were in place but the puzzle remained. Only writing The Goodbye Baby completed the picture.

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After both sets of parents died, I found that looking into the past gave me the wisdom to see where I’d been and how to go forward.

What my adoption has taught me is that the world reflects my inner reality, that my happiness or unhappiness depend on my actions and not on outside forces. I’ve learned that it is never too late to make a fresh start.

I have always known I would be a writer. In the summer of 1962, I wrote in my diary,

“Some of this frantic recording is wasted energy. How can I have a future as a writer?…I need to find something to say.”

The theme of adoption is that “something.”

Join Elaine on monthly Mondays for reflections on adoption and sneak previews of her newest novel, The Ganesh Girls find Happiness.

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An Ode to Halloweens Past

Tags

halloween, memories, time machine

Turn back the clock 40 years. It’s October 31st and my two sons, ages 5 and 7, can’t wait to go Trick or Treating. Under their white ghost costumes, they’re wearing Winnie the Pooh sleepers. Zia Road, a dirt street at the edge of town, has little traffic. We know most of the neighbors and their children, Cathy Ortiz across the street, the Dixon kids, the Joneses, the Lovato boys. We’ve gone to just a couple of their houses when a misty rain begins to fall. The temperature’s dropping; before we know it, rain has turned to snow. Falling thick and fast. What started out as fun is now operation Outward Bound. The boys finally agree it’s time to go home. Not a big candy haul, but, truth be told, they don’t even like candy. The fun is collecting as much as possible. Home early, we make a fire in the fireplace and they count their candy. Most of it will simply be hoarded.

Fast forward ten years, the 1980s. The children in the neighborhood are now teenagers, including my own. They’re all doing Halloween with friends. Parents are left home to celebrate on their own. I’m throwing a Halloween party, complete with a costume contest. I’ve decked the halls with skeletons, spiderwebs, jack o lanterns, skulls and witches. The ghetto blaster plays a sound track of creaking doors, dripping water, eerie scuttling and fiendish laughter. I’ve rented a Dorothy costume and encouraged guests to come as other Wizard of Oz characters. The prize, decided by a party attendee who hasn’t entered the contest, goes not to the Oz folks but to Lois, who’s wearing the garb of a creepy black bat.

Another decade gone by…In the 1990s I became an elementary school librarian, the most fun job I’ve ever. As part of the school’s Halloween carnival, the students and I filled the library with pumpkins, stuffed black cats, pictures of witches and other spooky stuff. Fake cobwebs festooned the windows, skeletons dangled in nooks and crannies. Hairy spiders lurked in the bookshelves. I dressed as Nancy Drew and gave small prizes to children who dressed as their favorite book characters. Recordings of children’s books played on my concealed  “ghetto blaster.” They were “books that read themselves,” and also were titles that I’d read during class time read-aloud. Anyone who could tell me the name of the book being narrated would get an award.

What about Halloween of 2023? No one will be coming to the door Trick or Treating, and I’ll probably be at home finishing a re-read of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (selected by my book club). Last weekend, however, I celebrated the holiday early by going to “The Haunted Garden,a night of storytelling, hot cider and bonfires. It was a cold, moonlit eve at Santa Fe Botanical Garden, and it was the perfect setting to savor Halloweens of the past.

Dear readers: Please subscribe! Sign up on my website (left-hand side, click on FOLLOW) to be notified of monthly posts on life in Santa Fe, New Mexico, hiking, nature, books, writing and more.. See the world through adoption-colored glasses. Check out my novel series: Beast of Bengal, All the Wrong Places, and The Hand of Ganesh. Order directly from Pocol Press or go to Amazon. And thank you for reading!

Adopting Autumn

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Autumn, Gleaning, Harvest, Hiking, John Keats, Reaping, Ripeness, Seasons

To Autumn
~ John Keats

(1795-1821)

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Sometimes we grow so busy, we forget to enjoy the changing of seasons. Yesterday, as I walked the arroyo near my house, I received a wakeup call. Crisp air, trees nearly bare, dazzling blue sky. On the arroyo floor, a previous hiker had left a message in the sand. It spoke directly to me, a reminder to cherish Autumn.

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Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and life. Your comments are invited. November, which will be here in less than two weeks, brings National Adoption Awareness Month, and submissions are being taken for guest blogs on all aspects of adoption. Length no more than 500 words, photos accepted, short bio needed. Send queries to elaine.coleman2013@gmail.com

Decades of diaries became my memoir, The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries

Blue Monday or Serenity in San Diego

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Getting away, healing, Relaxation, San Diego, Travel

The road going nowhere in particular

“Wherever you go, you take yourself with you” goes the saying. After arriving for a short vacation in one of my favorite cities, San Diego, I was therefore not surprised that “Edgar” had brought himself along for the ride. He, or “it” if you prefer, had packed himself in the depths of my ginormous suitcase, amongst the slacks, tops, electronics, books, walking shoes and books. Egad, can’t I go anywhere to escape from that demon?
To understand Edgar, you need to know that I am a “recovering” adoptee. My original mother relinquished me when I was five. Even though I grew up with wonderful adoptive parents, I’ve struggled for years to come to terms with being adopted. I wish I could announce in a loud voice that I’ve succeeded in getting over my adoption issues. The best I can offer, however, is to say confidently that I am making progress.

This change of scene, however, has been more beneficial than weeks of therapy. San Diego’s magic begins to take effect the moment I arrive. The adjectives that come to mind: salubrious, sensational, scenic. Add to that another ingredient: simplicity. There is something quite wonderful about running away from home. Life can be pared down to an easier pace.

My host family (son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren) leaves for work and school every weekday at 7 a.m., so on this overcast late Autumn morning, I embark on a two-hour walk to a nearby coffee shop. I’ve been visiting this San Diego neighborhood for the better part of the last decade and traveling the same route, to the java cafe. First it was “It’s a Grind,” which went out of business. Then it became “Sweetest Buzz.” But this time, there is no coffee shop. Where the “Buzz” should have been loomed a completely empty retail space. A “For Lease” sign was taped on the window. A sad, empty storefront occupied the place I’d spent memorable hours composing on my laptop and sipping lattes.

Had the expedition fallen flat, or was there something else awaiting me? Instead of going home right away, I decide to check out the park near my host family’s house. Walking a couple miles back to the neighborhood, I sit and enjoy a serenade of songbirds, the ambiance of healthy young trees, a verdant carpet of green grass.

The park itself is a marvel. When I first saw it years ago, it looked unpromising, even hopeless. Today, the community outdoor space is filled with children swinging, sliding, digging in the sandbox. Parents visit with one another. Laughter from a toss ball game sounds across the field. An elderly man is marching along the sidewalk, stopping at each circuit workout to do pushups or pullups or a balance beam.

The day isn’t complete, however, until I take a hike on the nearby former dairy road. It’s a road I’ve walked before. One of the city’s many walking paths, it branches off from a busy thoroughfare and loops back into a small canyon. Thistle, purple flowers, and feathery plumed bushes brighten a brown and sage terrain. Ahead of me, a large bird, strutting in a quail-like fashion, walks across my path. Other than it, I am alone. The sun intensifies, but just in time a gentle breeze picks up.

Of course, being a grandmother/writer and retired from a regular career means that life should be simpler anyway. That’s not how it works, however. When I’m at home, a million projects shout out: “clean me,” “organize me,” “declutter me.” Right here, in sunny, wonderful San Diego, the only thing I have to declutter is my mind. Accepting victory, I acknowledge that I’ve once again I dueled the evil Edgar. On this gloriously sunny Monday, mine is the victory.

The author is reminded that “Not all who wander are lost”

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SaveNote to followers: This is a re-run of a previously published post, but the feelings it expresses suit today, when I’m once again visiting my home away from home here in San Diego. Except for the fact that I love my hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, I could happily live here all the time. Do you have a favorite “home away from home” spot. If so, I’d love to feature it (and you) on my blog. Just send me a note at elaine.coleman2013@gmail.com and I promise to reply!