28 February 2006

Octavia Butler

I was going to write tonight about my changes to this blog, how I wanted to write about our adoption, how I wanted to write more about writing, how I was a little tired of the pretentious name and how I was going to re-tool and get down to business. But D called and told me that Octavia Butler died. Fell and hit her head on a cobblestone walk outside her house. She was such a wonderful writer and I suspect she could have gone on writing for a long time. Her departure from the science fiction world is a loss to those of us who love science fiction for the social structure and relationships she wrote about instead of rockets and guns and danger for adventure's sake. She was solitary and solid. She was an artist. I will miss her work and her spirit in the world.

25 February 2006

still here

I am still here. And angels are watching; the gods take an interest. I was on the bus this morning, up in Chicago, going to work, and my heart opened further. Could I really feel such a thing? I've been watching for Asian faces where ever I go. At first wondering what it will be like to have an Asian adult woman as my daughter. Of course, the little girl we adopt will grow up! Then I realized that I don't know the difference between Chinese, VietNamese, Philipine, Japanese, Korean faces. I recognize they are different but I have no idea. I laugh at myself -- many times I can't tell countries of origin in Caucasian people, why should I imagine that I could see it in Asians!? But I go on looking. Then, this morning I thought that when I am in Chicago, I see so many more Asians and my daughter will need to see faces like hers as she grows. She might be a minority but I don't want her to be unique. I want her to see people more like her than her parents on the street, in her school, shoping, driving buses, and playing. Then, there was some movement inside and a melting into something new. The accident, not driving much right now, a day with Cheshire as she took her place in a very special class, working with David to get the adoption going, visiting my father for a few days to just be with him, seeing a dear friend going through changes that may not be reversed, and now staying in Chicago for an entire week on my own. If this the recipe for change? I felt myself open up and become more real. More of myself. As if led for a long time through a tunnel and only now seeing a bit of light. I did not even know I was in darkness. I am in love with a person I do not know. I am fiercely protective of her in a way I have not been before. I am no sentimental fool however. I have been reading and gathering information about older kid adoption and what I read scares me badly sometimes. I have no idea where the reserves of strength and patience come from when I hear from families who have taken on very troubled souls. I pray that my daughter will be easier but I am preparing to recognize the worst. Finally, I understand why so many religious parents talk about being led by their god. This feeling that I have today cannot be explained in rational terms. I have never wanted to mother so much as now, and never willing to give of myself so much. I understand that the only way to explain it is some divine intervention. My feeling is different -- or explainable to me in another way. It is a blooming of what has always been inside -- oh yes, what a late blooming parent! Ha! Who would have expected? Certainly, not me. As if a desert rain has awaken long dried seeds. I have been shaken up, turned upside down, and put back together in a slightly different way. I sit at my desk, typing and wonder if I look different. Are my feet still touching the ground? Am I inches taller? Do I breathe deeper? I am still here and I am here differently. I struggle for words and still I write.

14 February 2006

god is interested

And then, on Sunday, I was driving up to Chicago as I regularly do. I usually leave in the middle of the afternoon on Sundays so that I drive most of the way up in the light, reaching Chicago in the first dark when parking is awful, but not horid.

I was only about 50 miles out from Chicago, when the road became suddenly, very, very suddenly, icy. It went from a dry road to that black ice that covers the road with its devestating sheen. And the cars and trucks were all going fast. I was in the left lane of a two lane interstate (The fast lane). The car in front of me started to swerve on the road and the brake lights went on. (When I spoke to the insurance people on Monday and gave them my statement, they wanted to know which happened first to the car in front -- brake lights or swerving -- and I have no idea. I'm sure there was a sequence but I reacted to both.) I slowed a bit but that front car was slowing faster than I was and to avoid hitting it, I breaked harder. Of course, as soon as I breaked harder, the car started to swerve. I was loosing control. I was on the shoulder and in my lane. I tried to stay on the shoulder because it was rocky and it might have slowed me down or helped me get control, but I couldn't. My car was sliding. It slid right into the right land where a tractor trailer was. I was aware that I could not stop what was going on. (I will tell you that I have had premonitions of sliding under a tractor trailor recently. I am sure I was being told of something from inside of myself, but of what use was it. Or was it? What could I have done about what I 'knew"? But then, maybe it was just getting me accustomed to what was going to happen, so it would not be as much a shock. It was awful, but it was almost expected. Is that insane?). The passenger side of my car slid under the truck -- in the space between the wheels. The roof of that side of the car cracked and crashed in, the windshielf shattered and popped. I shouted, oh, god, oh, god, oh, god. It felt like the car was caught under the truck for a moment and then thrown away from the truck. (of course, it was not thrown, and trying to give an accurate statement to the insurance was impossible. I have impressions of this event without an objective story. By the time an objective story was again possible to tell, I was out of danger. There is so much talk in law about objective and subjective. It is hard to sort out in the best of times, and when the event is like Sunday's, the two merge, intwine, and cannot be separated. And the stories are messy.) As the car came away from the truck, it spun around and was briefly facing south headding for the oncoming traffic. Then it was spinning further and faced west. As I think of it now, I gained a little bit of control at this point. Maybe this was the beginning of gaining control. I turned the steering wheel and allowed the car into the median which is a grassy patch about the same size as a two lane highway. It dips down on either side of the road making a V- shaped grassy space. I had no thought so I can't say that I thought the grass might stop the car or even slow it down, but I realized that I was out of traffic for a moment. I was shocked at how fast the car went into the median and came out of it again. (Weeks ago I was stuck in traffic on the same road and watched some cars drive through the median and get on the other side of the road. I didn't dare because I assumed that my little car would get caught in the grass on the way back up the median. Who knew?) Then the car was on the median, then it was on the south bound lanes of traffic. And I shouted my half-prayer, half- salutation again. But the car had slowed down a great deal. It was almost stopped, facing north on the south side of the highway, I was in control again if control was possible for me to take, and the traffic which was heavy on both sides of the road seemed to be stopped or very much slowed on the southern side and not coming near me. (Later, I realized that at least two other cars had done what mine had done. I don't know whether they were cars in front of me or behind me, but they had come across from the northern side to the southern side of the road, and the traffice on the sourthern side had probably stopped by the time I headed into the southern side of the road. At least one of the cars that had skidded arcoss the median before mine was not as lucky and was hit by an on-coming car in the southern lane.) I turned the car around and drove over to the far shoulder of the road. I was shaken up beyond belief, but I was not injured.

I sat, whatever chemicals had shot through my body to keep me in the present during my slide began receding almost immediately and I started shaking, almost crying, making sure I was physically all there, and looking at the glass that was all over the inside of the car and all over me. Traffic had stopped, a man came to my car and aked if I was injured. I said I didn't think so. He told me he was a preacher and told me he was praying as soon as he saw cars slide. He said something that I remember as "god has taken some interest in you" although that is not exactly what he said. I opened the door and stood outside. I insisted in taking his hand, although he wanted to see what had happened in the other cars. There was one in the ditch off the shoulder that I was on. There was clearly more damage, injury, and help was needed. But I needed his flesh next to mine. I needed human touch and insisted on it for a minute.

Then there were police sirens, and ambulances, and questions, and I started feeling the cold, then someone gave me a blanket to keep me from going into shock. Then there was time of waiting, picking essentials from the glass strewn car, watching the car being towed, being taken to a rest stop, not being able to get David on my cell phone, being offered a ride home by a kid who had hit one of the other sliding cars with his truck, then talking to David, then talking to my boss in Chicago to let her know I would not be there this week, then the ride home and then David and home. I talked it through with David, and yesterday with the insurance carrier, and still felt not myself all day yesterday. By the time I was ready for bed, I felt myself coming back.

At some point during the slide and immediate aftermath, I realized how happy I have been -- life, family, friends, a great job, Chicago, my garden, and a new daughter. Had I been too happy to keep living? The preacher's words seemed to be the answer. David later asked if god was interested in the two carloads of people who were taken to the hospital? That makes me tremble again.

That's all. That's what happened. I have to write it. Tell it to you. I know, I still have no distance from it but I must share.

12 February 2006

of the journey

Long roads. Not enough focus. Small steps. I would like to fly, but I walk deliberate and slow. A journey, no doubt. A very deliberate journey. Living full out. Living deliberately. Glorious is one doesn't mind the sweat and effort.

08 February 2006

The sun is out today in Chicago. It is cold but I can almost smell the spring. Of course, it will snow three feet tonight!

I still have a shit-eating grin on my face at time because of our adoption decision. I want to put a time line on this blog. I have to figure it out. I walk around Chicago and Indianapolis and look at faces. I see Asian adult and wonder, 'is this what my daughter will look like?' But there are not many of those faces. Where will she see others like her. Sure, we will join the local FCC no matter where we are, but she will need to see faces that are like hers to be really comfortable in this new country of hers.

As a kid, I longed for people who were like me. People who stuttered. I never met them. I grew up believing that I was the only one, certainly the only one with problems like I had. Now certainly, being Chinese is not like stuttering, but the longing of those of one's own kind must be universal. At least for awhile.

In VietNam I had not the slightly longing for those of my own kind. I reveled in the strangness. I felt no different from those around me. At times, I was transparent to myself. That is too much to expect of a child. How will we teach her?

We start the homestudy tomorrow. We have worked on written questions and David has filled out the form. I hope it goes well and FAST! Right now my aim is to be ready by March 15 with the home study and as asap after that with the completed dossier. But I am sure it all depends on how soon the SW can see us and write up the draft home study. We haven't found this child yet, but I know she is waiting and I don't want her to wait any longer than necessary. I have found a mother's heart towards this one. Only inconsequently things, like her age, her face, her likes and dislikes, her needs, are missing. And they are almost nothing much.

04 February 2006

Decisions

We decided this morning over oatmeal and coffee to go with FTIA for our adoption. We will do the non-special needs route with the idea that if a waiting child appears on the list, we will do special needs. D is most comfortable with this decision, and I, although one part of me hates to give up the chase, know that such a decision will cut down on the confusion and proliferation of paper and lists and yahoo groups. So much of this mission is a leap of faith, like pregnancy and the odd combinations of dominant and recessive genes that make a person. Sooner or later with the conception of a bio child, you make the decision to begin and have sex and hope it begins. Who knows if the offered egg that month and the strongest sperm will make a child that fits well in your womb, your family, and your world, but you make the decision and blindly proceed from there. That same sort of decision is all over the adoption process, but it feels more rational because you are choosing an agency, a social worker, giving parameters for the child. It is not rational, the leap remains. And I am trusting in gut feelings to some extent -- after a plenitude of research -- we need focus and order and so we chose an agency. Will they have our daughter on their list -- well, yes, because their list is what we will have to chose from. It is a leap of faith. Some magic. Much hope. And the red thread is pulled just a little tighter bringing us closer to this little girl who is our daughter.

03 February 2006

Chasing paper

With so many change and so long since I wrote, it is hard to know where to begin. From New Years Eve, when David said he would consider adoption to my birthday when David said we should get started with it. We are off to China -- well, after paper work and waiting. I have been without focus for weeks, and now need to find it to do all that I want to do. We will gather documents and do the work of adoption as fast as we can so that we will be ready when the next set of waiting kid lists come out. And I will work harder to finish the novel, with a date of April 1 now. And I must focus also at work to better my work. And the garden and the house. And friends. I feel deeply without understanding all of it. The journey appears such a straight line right now. Maybe pitfalls but a straight line.