Growing Family

Thinking

I think I want to shut down this blog. Maybe it is the cold winter days, or the life space I am in, or the emotional rut I seem to be trudging, but I'm just not feeling it.

I can remember being a new mother, standing in the shower, turning a phrase over and over in my head, internally writing a piece, crafting it, sanding down the rough edges, until it fit in my mind like a smooth egg, ready to release.

These days I sometimes dash off some lines of thought, unedited, unconsidered. Though I have the time to do so, I've lost the writing in my head part, the wooing of the words to dance for my pleasure.

My children are growing up, and it feels like the right time to keep their stories more private.

I am at a stalemated transition of stay-at-home-parenting meets return to the workforce. We are also in some eternal suspension of "trying to get licenced for foster care". It seems as if we never will.

There are a few bloggers I've loved over the years, who have made their exit amidst an overflow of comments (mine included) begging them to stay, to continue to share their voice and their perspective. I'm not looking for that. I'm not writing this to solicit such comments.

When I think about my blog, a soulful voice rises in my head, "the thrill is gone...the thrill has gone away" croons B.B. King.

I know three specific people who will be disappointed if I close up shop. My mother (bless her), my mother-in-law (how nice), and my sister (sisters!), are my biggest fans. That says great things about the support of my family, but doesn't speak well to the success of my readership! If I do shut the blog down, I'll miss having an outlet to share. Life can be so lonely sometimes and this blog is a place where it feels safe to reach out into the void. Sometimes just saying things out loud helps, and this place is that for me.

From Australia it was the trumpet that carried my words to America. From America it is the folded paper wings that carry my days and thoughts to my friends back home in Sydney. This is my bridge. This is my catapult.

It's just that I now question whether in this season, I have enough to launch across the void?

In this era of social media, I value making a comment, posting a status update, and feeling that I have "shared". In that climate, I have lost my love of word craft. I have lost my connection to writing. I have forgotten how to read.

I "read" skimming, scrolling, clicking away, seldom ingesting, digesting, processing, absorbing. 

This has got to change. I need to sink my teeth into my own ideas, and those of others. I need to distance myself from this quick public culture I have joined.

I wonder if walking away from the blog, getting back to the pen and paper journal, will result in a bottling up and more pressing need to hone my thoughts down to that smooth egg again? I want my words to become more precious, and the sharing of them more earned. 

The thing that keeps me from leaving, each time I think I am ready, is remembering the early days when blogging really did feel like a community. It is thinking about how other women sharing their stories has deeply impacted my life time and time again, and the bloggers I read who leave me sitting in stunned silence, absorbing their brilliance after the final full stop. It is wondering how my connection to friends who use this as a window into my life, will stay connected to me and I to them?

Tonight I want to close the blog, and I'm in love with it still. Like my life at the moment, the flash between light and shadow can be disorienting, and I don't know where I'll stop. Tonight, I'm just thinking.

PS- I may also be having a mid thirties crisis. Is that a thing?

PPS - (Please, please, I am not fishing for comments of support. I know which of you love me and love this space, and I love you too!)

Adoption Blogger Interview Project 2012

This year I am participating in the Adoption Blogger Interview Project that Heather at Production Not Reproduction organizes. Two adoption bloggers are randomly paired and exchange questions. 

I have been paired up with Suz of Writing My Wrongs and we will publish our interviews on the 14th. 

I started blogging in 2006, and the adoption blogger space was very small. I got to know most all of the key players through message boards, forums, and the like. Then blogging EXPLODED and my life went CRAZY with kids, and I just totally set aside any expectation that I would be a blogger who attended conferences, or networked, or attracted advertisers, or pretty much anything other than having my own place on the internet to come and get the tumble out of my brain. My priority was sanity, and a shower. Every second day.

Anyway, this little exercise talking with Suz has got my brain going again and it has been so much fun to exchange questions and read her blog, and kind of "get out there" in the public blogging space again. Slightly scary when I think about trolls, but lots of fun.

So, stay tuned for the interview out on the 14th, and head over to Heather's blog PNR to see the whole list of participants!

February Photo Challenge

You may have noticed that the return to school means I have more time to think, ahem, blog. I've decided to go for the February photo challenge that's buzzing around. A photo a day, inspired by the following list is what you're meant to shoot for. 

I don't know that I'll get to post them every day, but it looks like fun.



1. Your View Today - The fresh elevator doors at a local shopping center 

 

 

2. Words - some new hair product for Small Sun from another mom with a biracial boy. I promise, the specimen container was not recycled, she just happened to have it on hand. I liked the product pretty well.

 

Blogging

I've been writing here for about four years now. No, don't jump to any conclusions, I am not shutting the blog down, although I thought about joining American Family in her swift exit from the blogosphere (sniff, sniff, I miss you AmFam!). No, this isn't about that.

I go through a bit of ebb and flow with my relationship with the blogosphere. Sometimes I am faithfully reading all 82 blogs in my feedreader, leaving comments and being right in the thick of all the chatter. Other times I kind of lose interest or get busy with real life. I used to feel really invested in what was going on in adoption around the globe, but I'm a bit distanced from that now. 

Right now there are a couple blogs that I'm stalking. I've even started to figure out the schedule of when one publishes, I'm so eager for that next fix. They are the splash of humour and colour that get me laughing, dreaming, and finding that little bit of zing to put spice in my day. I am not ashamed to say that I love these blogs and blow air kisses to them through my monitor. 

First there's Enjoying the Small Things by the fabulous Kelle Hampton. I first read Kelle's blog when she published her birth story six months ago. After eagerly anticipating the birth of her second child, she was rocked when her daughter was born with Downs Syndrome. I love a lot of things about her blog. For one thing she is a photographer and each entry is bursting with stunning photographs of her gorgeous daughters and the magic they make every day. She is serious about draining the last drops of joy from her cup, every day. When parenting becomes mundane and exhausting, her blog helps me shake a leg and refocus on the beauty and wonder happening right under my nose.

Then there is Party of 5 aka Five Free Spirits*. This is a husband and wife blogging duo sharing their life which entails twin boys from Haiti that are all boy times one thousand and a dear little daughter (who is their biological child) and is a strong little sprite with a passion for necklaces. Their blog takes on the struggles of a two career household and the joys and challenges that entails, as well as fabulous food Fridays filled with mouth watering recipes.

Lastly, I'm loving Rage Against the Minivan where Kristen Howerton keeps me in stitches with her overwhelmed parenting of four children, preschool age and younger (2 birth, 2 bio). As an introvert she talks about the struggle of being ON. ALL. DAY! for four busy little people and I can so relate. She also talks frankly about race, adoption, and attachment issues, and I love her for it. This girl is hilarious and I don't know how she does it all!

These are "real" bloggers. Their blogs look flash, they speak at conferences and get interviewed on television shows...you know, real bloggers. 

So what does that have to do with me? Well not a lot, actually, since this blog is more like a journal tucked under my pillow. I scribble away here and then it goes out of sight. I am not on anyone's "radar", my site is bare-bones, it's just a notepad. BlogHer is not offering to fly me on a private jet to their next shindig.

But there are ways that my blog could be more luscious. Mainly, photographs. One thing I love about the above blogs is that they have tons of pictures. You feel like you know the families, warts and all (and when I say warts I mean gorgeous shades of lipstick, scrumptious plates of food, and stylish home interiors). You feel like you know and love their kids. You feel like you're friends. I love that.

I have tons of gorgeous pictures of our life that I would love to share, but don't because of dirty old trolls. I don't use our names or identifying images for the same reason. You know, safety from weirdos, etc. It is really a shame because my kids are gorgeous and I'd love to have that kind of feel on my blog...and I love blogs that operate that way, but even though I want to take that step, I still have not. I've had some weirdos come through here and your stomach just rolls when you know they've been poking around your pics. I also know of other bloggers who have had their pics lifted off of their blogs and used in some nasty on-line environments.

So what do you think? All of the bloggers I mentioned just look at life as the glass half-full. They embrace the community of the blogosphere and snub the creeps. I'm thinking about doing the same. What do you think? 

Go check out those sites, they're really fabulous and will make your day!

*Precisely because of creeps and haters, Party of 5 is now password protected, but if you are a genuine reader, I think they still add people to their list.

The Plodding, I mean Blogging

I've been writing here for almost three years now. I've written a lot about adoption, a lot about parenting, a lot about our move to Australia, just a lot about my life from my perspective, really.

When I started writing, the adoption blog world was a pretty small place. I knew my way around and I felt like I had a finger on the pulse of what was going on. At this point there are so many people blogging about adoption, that there is no way I can keep track anymore. I would love to be able to read tons of blogs and comment on them, and be part of the big discussion, but I can't. I have two little kids that keep me very, very busy.

In addition to the blog world exploding, the issues that are salient to me have changed, as my children grow. I also find that being outside of the U.S., I feel less compelled to really be a part of the American adoption system. Fighting for reform, writing representatives, raising awareness...it's all so far away.

I find that since moving here, adoption is less a part of my life for several reasons: adoption is so rare here that people don't have misconceptions and opinions about adoption. They ask me sincere questions and have no point of reference. In Nashville everyone had their ideas about adoption from Lifetime movies, and their sister's cousin's adoption experience that they projected onto our family. I was always against the current, trying to educate in a strong stream of misinformation.

Also, since we have had to lay adoption down completely at this point (fully intending to adopt again as soon as we are in a position to do so), I am less inclined to stay on top of what is happening in the adoption world, knowing that it will all have changed again by the time it is relevant to us.

I still value this as a place to come and release my thoughts, but I confess I start to lose my voice when I think no one is listening. This isn't a journal, after all. It is public, it is a monologue that requests a response.

My baby will be here in two and a half weeks, or less. Then I will have even less time to read and comment, and to write. My life will be filled with sleepless nights, adornment in the form of spit up, and nursing. Teething, first foods, crawling...I've written about it all before. Twice.

I'm not sure which direction this blog will take in the next season. I won't close it, as I appreciate my ability to come here and write. At the same time, I don't really know what I'll have to say, or how often I'll come to say it. I don't know who is reading here these days, or what they are coming for. I'll take it one step at a time and see what grows.

Thanksgiving Day Poem

Dancers
November 27, 2008

You can't always tell who the dancers are
Bodies release the sleek tautness of training
Bodies surrender to child-bearing, forever changed.

But the evidence is there in the movement
In the fingers as they hang
In the curve of the neck - strong.

If you could look in the windows of a former dancer,
Some days you would see
Her children over breakfast gazing

At long arms like swan necks
Reflected in the photo frames.
At the torso releasing to the call of music.

The old dancer stiff and heavy, whose body still holds grace-
Like a spring that needs release.

Even if the kitchen is the stage and
The children the audience.

Give to Ceasar What is Ceasar's

I am processing a lot of things these days. Normally I would write here to help me process, but while I am very honest here about adoption and parenting, these current topics are a bit too personal to explore in public. I have been using this blog for so long as my one-stop-shop for exploration, confession, and mucking my thoughts about, that not having it be an appropriate place to process leaves me feeling a bit displaced. I might have to dust off the paper journal and pick up a favorite pen.

So, in general summary, we are pretty settled on having this baby by c-section. I had a wonderful, natural birth experience with The Sprout that was everything I wanted it to be: empowering, revelatory, deepening, spiritual, and...well, words fail, really. Also in my birth experience with her, some complications developed that resulted in a lot of trauma and a long and painful recovery that was both physically and emotionally difficult. I didn't write about it much, as it was so personal, but it was a very difficult time.

To make a long story go longer, I ended up with an OB here, rather than a midwife, even though a midwife would be more my style. The OB has emphasized his strong opinion that the safest way for me to have this baby is via c-section. My General Practitioner is in full agreement. Wanting to have the opinions from "both sides", I consulted a home-birth midwife with 30 years experience. Her council was that I could try for another natural birth and with months of preparation and the prospect of some intervention, she thought we could minimize the complications that arose last time.

So, after mulling it over for several weeks, and talking to God about it, I think having a c-section is the best choice for me, and our family, in these circumstances. I am not comfortable with the idea of surgery, never having spent any real time sick or in hospital. But, I'm processing it. Believe me, I've only given you the surface skimmings, though it may not seem like it.

The other thing I'm processing but not discussing (hehe), is the role of our faith in this move, and what we expect to happen here. I realized this week that it's like we were following the pillar of fire/cloud in the dessert, and then it disappeared. Sometimes there's nothing like asking "why are we here?" to start to remember.

In other pregnancy news, I'm starting to remember things about pregnancy that I'd forgotten. Last week I was just a little fat. This week, I am surely pregnant. I "popped out", as they say. It's little things that I forgot, like the way sometimes you bend over and your muscles catch there and when you stand up, they don't release! Then you're kind of stuck half bent over, trying to get the muscles to un-glitch. So graceful.

Oh, and the shifting of the center of gravity. I've nearly toppled over a couple times this week because I leaned, and didn't expect the extra pull of this apple-sized baby to be so strong. There have been a couple times where I really felt movement, though technically, I shouldn't yet. It wasn't kicking or anything, just this feeling of my uterus, occupied. And the eating! Today was a switch from eating to keep from throwing up, to eating like a ravenous little scavenger. Things I wouldn't have dared two days ago, I was scarfing down, fearfully, but as one compelled. The fresh grape tomatoes and young cucumbers from my garden were particularly satisfying, as was the fresh squeezed orange juice the Captain made. (Did I fail to mention the mac'n'cheese, brownies and ice cream, and heavily salted nuts? Oops.)

Lastly, I feel like I've surrendered my voice for adoption here lately. I am not in the process of adopting, nor do I live in the States where my opinions on adoption reform are relevant. Sometimes I forget that as an adoptive mother, I have a permanent stake in the world of adoption, even if I am not currently engaged in it. I've read two pieces lately that really moved my heart and reminded me of what I am passionate about in adoption. The conversation about adoptive parent's "claiming" a baby in a pre-birth match, over at Dawn's, and Heather's discussions of creating inventive ways to make sure adoptive parents are meeting their own ethical standards when adopting in states that have Termination of Parental Rights and Revocation Period time-frames that they don't feel are adequate and ethical.

Reading these two discussions has been intensely engaging and I am reminded of how much I care, and how interested I am in being involved in adoption in America, and the world. I think I had to shelf that for awhile, after finding out we can't adopt right now. But I think I might rejoin the conversation soon.

So there you have it: there are the visible tips of the icebergs. Now I'll have to go plumb the rest of the depths on my own.

Mucking About

This may not come as a surprise to you, or more likely, you'll never even know I posted this, because the truth of the matter is, readers are dropping like flies from my blog. There are still a few faithful, and I love each of you!

I've been thinking about what's going on and I think there are a couple factors. First, well, I haven't been writing much. If you want people to read and comment, it kind of helps to give them something to read, eh? I do recognize that basic fact. However, this blog being the cathartic medium I've always treasured it to be, means that I don't write stuff just to have a post up. I write something when I have something to process, or something to say.

It's not that I haven't been processing lately...I actually have a lot on my mind. For some strange reason, that goes beyond all of the history of my personality, I am processing inside. My inner processes aren't often surfacing in conscious words and lines of thought, they are more like the currents, under the surface of the water. I always process out loud. Lately, I'm not emailing my girlfriends, I'm not even really trying to talk to The Captain. I've been journaling a bit, but what is happening in me seems so private. How odd that as I write this, I don't even know what I am talking about! Okay, that's not entirely true. There are two issues which are very personal, or very painful, that aren't public material, but in general there's just a lot of undeveloped processing happening inside of me.

So, that's the bit about my thoughts being stuck inside and not coming out. The other bit is that my blog is lacking definition right now. It is not adoption-focused enough to draw the adoption crowd, and the same is true for parenting, and ex-pat-living, not to mention our ex-pat experience isn't really exciting enough to draw those readers. Since I write a little bit about a variety of things, I'm not pulling any one crowd, and I'm not gaining new readers.

Then there's also the very real possibility that I've turned people off somewhere.

So, what do I do? I don't want to shut my blog down, but this internal processing is really cramping my style. I don't want to go on a post-a-thon, trying to draw readers. And I don't want to go out fishing for readers. Kind of sounds like I'm really not that passionate about keeping this thing going, doesn't it?

The thing is, life is seasonal, and for me, blogging is too. I think I am in a quiet season where I am going deep, in order to get ready for what comes next.  It's like a long inhale, before I start sprinting. I feel like I need some time to close my eyes, and listen to the stillness. So, maybe a blog sabbatical? I'm just afraid that if I go away entirely for a period of time, no one will be here when I come back...and that would be too bad because I really like sharing this here, with you.

Just a couple thoughts...the ones that made it to the surface, at least.

Read This

Mayhem Mama (http://mayhemandmagic.typepad.com/mayhem_and_magic/) has this article up on her blog and I think everyone should go read it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100462.html

Being Black in America, and the world does affect how you live. Read it.

ps-what is wrong with my hyperlink! Arg.

Does an Explanation Void an Apology?

I have a bad habit. When I've hurt someone, and I go to apologize, I usually end up trying to explain myself because I think that if the person really understood where I was coming from, they wouldn't have been hurt in the first place. I think it comes partly from my compulsion to have the full truth out there. I don't want to leave someone with misconceptions about what I really meant or intended. I'm about to do that here.

Sometimes when I write something, I know that my tone is sarcastic, disrespectful, condescending, or judgmental. Lately I've been struggling with how to acknowledge that, knowing that right now, writing that way is serving a purpose in my life so I am not planning on editing myself in that regard. I don't want to hurt people, and I certainly don't want to convey that I think I know all about the topics I'm addressing. I don't.

Before I started blogging, I was talking to a good friend of mine. I told him I was thinking about trying my hand at blogging because I wanted a space to hash out what I was experiencing as an adoptive parent with a transracially adopted child. As wonderful and supportive as my friends were, when I needed to talk about the things I was seeing and experiencing, they just didn't get it. I don't blame or fault them, they just didn't. Instead of holding inside the things that made me angry or curious or sad, I needed a place to lay them out and process. So I came here.

I think so many people have already been through much of this process in the course of growing up. They have seen racism and white privilege in action, and have a schema for processing new information. Because I grew up as a home schooled kid living in the country, I didn't have those opportunities. I didn't see those things in action until I became mother to my son and it was very personal.

Discovering white privilege, the effects of Colonialism, current racism and stereotyping, discovering that adoption isn't conducted in an ethical manner much of the time, hearing for the first time that many first mothers suffer depression and grief and trauma for years after placement, coming to terms with my role in adoption, learning that many adoptees view adoption as a negative and damaging experience, navigating our semi-open adoption, all while bonding with my new son and parenting my new daughter, has been A LOT to deal with. Honestly, some days I am just reeling from it all.

What I spent my whole life believing about adoption, and aspiring to in adopting, has been totally rocked. I have learned and processed more information that affects me emotionally, in the last three years, than I would have ever imagined possible.

What I write here is an emotional release for me. After putting things into words I can let them go and move on to what I need to process next. Sometimes what I release is anger. Sometimes it's outrage. Sometimes it's sadness. Sometimes it's fear.

When I think about changing my tone to write this for YOU, to offend YOU less, and to garnish more readers through my honey-soaked, carefully weighed and measured arguments, I can't do it. Not right now. Right now I still need this place to come and rant once in awhile.

When I went to that school and they were playing music that was created to hurt members of my son's race, that made me angry. That they were playing it, yes, but that that kind of devisive evil is in our world. I need a place to scream that that is not okay.

I think I can also come across as aggressive sometimes because I am insecure here. As a blogger I am writing monologues. I can write something so personal to me and have lots of people read it but no one comment. It's like crying in public when no one asks you what's wrong. Sometimes I can handle that, and sometimes I come to the keyboard defensive because I have to get my thoughts out but I'm afraid someone will judge me for it or worse, that no one will say anything at all.

I'm sorry if I hurt you here. I'm sorry if I'm rude. I invite you to tell me so. I know that I am not always balanced and as my brother-in-law says in his Italian way, "I know I run my mouth." So, if me running my mouth bugs you, please tell me so that we can work it out.

Back to our previously scheduled programming!