Growing Family

Escaping Reality

Are you one of those people that keeps a picture of a pristine beach with a hammock and a cocktail in a coconut at the desk of your challenging job?

Maybe it's a pinned photo of a designer kitchen you dream of having one day, or a horse ranch you want when you retire?

In the midst of the daily necessities we all reach for something. We all dream of something we want in our future. Sometimes clinging to that dream is what we need to carry us through a challenging season.

Right now our housing situation is going a little bit nutso. I'll tell the story later, after it has a happy ending, but right now there's a "For Lease" sign in our front yard and strangers are coming to visit and wander through our space. Ten minutes away a "For Sale" sign has been taken down, and we are in that tenuous in between time, waiting to close on a home purchase. We are feeling pushed out of this house, but the other house isn't ours yet...it is all really complicated.

In between packing boxes, considering new gutter options, and paint colors, and high levels of stress about all the moving parts involved in this transition, I have my own little fantasy world I am escaping to. Don't tell my husband.

I imagine rocking up to the pet store and saying "I'll take one of each!"

I love pets. Love, love, love pets.

Birds. Lizards. Snakes. Turtles. Cats. Dogs. Horses. Goats. Let's be honest, we all know I want a farm.

For years I have been practical and restrained. It was only after considerable discussion and thought that we got our dog, Franklin, in Australia, knowing the effort and expense involved in moving a pet overseas.

In our current house, our lease agreement states that if we want even a lone fish, or insect for a pet, we must have permission from our landlord. Our dog is here under approval (and a pet deposit). To me freedom is the ability to make my own decision about aquiring a pet. 

How many times have I walked out the door and said to my husband "if I come across some kittens in a box in front of Walmart, or some baby ducks or bunnies in a parking lot (Easter, anyone?), I make no promises whatsoever." In fact, I would consider myself to be greatly restrained in the pet department.

So far, in my mind, I have acquired a parakeet (budgee). I can see it in a sunny corner in the new house. Some beta fish flash their iridescent tails in the kitchen. Outside, a resident turtle picked up from the side of the road, plays an unending game of hide and seek with the kids. Come Easter time, he may be joined by a resident bunny.

Let's be clear, I haven't acted on any of these fantasies, they're just fun distraction from the real business of this move. At least I haven't acted on them yet...if I pass a box of kittens in front of Walmart, I make no promises. Husband, you've been warned.

 

Houses and Homes

The Captain and I are currently under the 11th roof, in our 13 years of marriage. I am counting the in-between places, because they counted to me.

We have moved many, many times. Big moves, small moves, moves early on that were just a couple suitcases and the odd armchair, and moves that involve shipping containers and...ships!

Our lease is ending quite soon, at a most akward time (end of year school year, double birthdays, and travel abroad are taking up most of our energies), and we don't know what will happen next. In this time of flux I am thinking back on other times when our future lodgings were uncertain, and the way it always worked out.

When we married, we left our wedding reception, stayed locally overnight, and moved overseas the next morning. At the last minute we were informed that the apartment we has rented had been double-let and it would be 4-6 weeks until it was made available to us. After our honeymoon we moved in with my in-laws (in Holland) until our apartment was ready. While I would not have created that situation as my first-pick for starting married life, I got to know my in-laws in a way that would have taken years, given that we usually live overseas from them. It wasn't my plan, but it worked out great, and I have always been thankful for that time. The sweetest thing was learning to love the home my husband loved, and cooking with his mother. Some of her dishes continue to be family favorites at our table.

When we were moving to Sydney, we had arranged an apartment not far from Bondi Beach. We planned on living in the Eastern Suburbs. Weeks before our departure (with our house sold, and all our earthly possessions already en-route), we were informed the apartment had been flooded by a leak above and wouldn't be available after all. Desperately we searched and searched, finding nothing. Close to our departure, The Captain found a temporary furnished apartment in the Inner West, a completely different part of the city. After arriving there, we went walking the neighborhood during the weekend, stopping in at local open inspections. That's how we rented our first house. Little did we know that part of Sydney would become near and dear, and just perfect for us. (We met our very best friends walking to a local church before we had a car.)

When we were ready to sell our Nashville house to move to Sydney, some acquaintances of ours let us know they would like to buy it. They met our asking price and we exchanged keys and contracts in a casual way, assisted by a friend of theirs in real estate.

You see, sometimes the next step is right in front of us, and we can't see it at all. Sometimes it appears that we will end up sitting on our suitcases in the street. Sometimes we think we know exactly what should happen and then life takes a total twist.

The thing to remember is that the sun has shone over our heads at each stop along the way, and we have smiled at each other across the table, enjoying each other and our children, and finding something wonderful in the space we're in. It's silly to worry about where we'll be, because wherever we'll be will be grand.

 

 

Mothers

If the court removes your children from your care and terminates you parental rights against your will, are you still a mother? If you were doing the best job with what you had, and what you knew, and loved your kids, but society decided it wasn't enough, are you still a mother?

Today as I stayed in bed a little later than usual, overhearing my happy family preparing breakfast for me to enjoy in bed, talking about what they would write in the cards to say how great a mom they think I am, I thought about the other mothers of all the children I have loved.

Of course I think about Small Sun's first mom often. He came to us through an agency domestic adoption and we have an ongoing relationship with his mom. Today I thought about meeting her for the first time, and him coming into out lives.

Thinking about the mothers of our foster kids is very different to me. Making a decision to place a child for adoption, choosing the family yourself, and setting the terms of ongoing contact is a very different dynamic than having outside authorities enter your house and tell you your mothering is unacceptable. Both situations might lead to a child being adopted, but there are such very different complexities.

Imagine the state takes your children. You fight hard to get them back. You do what you know how to do. You plead, you beg, you appeal, but in the end the answer is "you are not a good enough mother." Your children are gone forever. 

What is Mother's Day for you then? Are you still a mother when your children have been taken?

This Mother's Day I hold my children close. I love them dearly and they love me. I think about the other children I love, who do not live under my roof. I pray for their mothers, who will always be mothers whether their children are with them or not.

The Rooted-Uprooted Life

From year to year, week to week, day to day, and hour by hour, life has so many changes and twists. That things will change and shift is actually the most predictable dynamic, but sometimes I find myself to be the most unpredictable part of it all.

I can wake up in the morning, centered, ready, confident, and be full of turmoil by lunch. I am recalling some things that I learned in the past about managing my own personal state, and recognizing my responsibility for my inner world. It takes work for me to rope in stress and fears that run wild, to breathe, to focus. I'm working on it.

We haven't been in Houston for a year yet, and I am at an odd place in the transition. My Sydney life seems worlds away, and I feel like my darling friends wouldn't be able to hear my voice if I called out to them. I can hardly remember what "normal" felt like in Sydney. It comes in flashes - the light in my beloved house, the wake of the ferry cutting across the river down the hill from our place, the pop and boom of the Easter Show fireworks crackling in the sky, the planter boxes full of waxy jade that I picked up as broken pieces on the sidewalk the first weeks we were in Sydney.

Finch is asking me many questions these days. "Why can I understand what everyone is saying if I am Australian and they are American? If Americans go to Australia, how do they know how to talk to people? What do you call these shoes again? "[Flip flop - thongs]

In so many ways we are settled in. I am on committees, and rosters, and rsvp'd to a myriad of things that remind me "next week, next month, next year, you have things to do here." I have friends I will see, and parties I will host.

For less than a year, I have a lot of roots in the ground.

But that tricky thing - myself - blunders. There are moments when I feel so disconnected, so longing for home. I like these people here. I like this place. But oh I miss home.

Life is so busy here, already, and the quiet spaces are filled up more and more. Because I haven't set aside time to recognize it, homesickness, uprootedness, takes me by surprise. I started crying over something this week and couldn't quite stop. That happens to me sometimes. Tears leak out over one thing, but then flow for all the other unnoticed things that have welled up. I took myself to bed early and wept for the people, the place, and the country that I have been missing so much without realizing it. Anzac Day came and went, the ingredients for cookies, and my best friend's recipe sat unused on a day filled up with so many other responsibilities. 

It is impossible to be in two places at once, and on some days I feel that I am in neither. Rooted, uprooted, neither here nor there.