Waiting for Hari

china map

posted by Suz @ 9:24 PM 0 comments

another step

We were fingerprinted today at CIS and David wrote up the petition letter that we had not thought we had to do. Betty from FTIA checked over the part of the dossier that we sent her. It is fine and minus only four things -- I 171, the petition letter, money and our work books. We are very close. I am sincerly hoping to get the CIS aproval next week. Maybe I am nuts. If we do, we can be DTC by May 12 and traveling in August will be a possibility. Then we can work on Zhi Kuang's room and furniture. I can look at clothes and think about what to pack for me and for our little one.

It was a very hard work week and I don't want to admit just how hard it was. There is a tension in that office that I was hoping to avoid. What is with this office tension thing? Is it lawyers? Is it the type of office that I have chosen to work in? There is a chance that our dropping numbers will mean a half less job. I have no doubt but that it would be me losing out, but the others seems just as tense. I don't know whether it is my karma to work out or just the state of things.

Those finishing touches on the novel are going just too slow. I slogged though part two last week and will do the last part next week and te week after. I would like to believe that it is a good story well written, but I have no idea anymore. If it is a page turner, it is lost on me.

To David on the last day of May.

Sick today. I thought it was not taking my blood pressure meds for three days, but it might be the flu thing that Marcia had a few weeks ago. That actually makes me feel better about being sick. Three days of no meds producing very dizzy feeling, with a bad stomach, no appetite, and sleeping troubles is a bit much. Flu I can deal with. Slept when David came home until after eight.

Cheshire called and she is into the Cambridge program for next semester. Some course work this summer which will put her at home or in Chicago and with us. Then to England, our christmas there, probably Spain in Spring, and Bolivia in the summer.

I am not quite there yet and do not yet know where there is, but I have that nagging feeling of expectation, of needing to push at something, not of being unsatisfied, but looking expectantly around the corner.

posted by Suz @ 12:11 AM 0 comments

Pre-Approval from China

Today was PA day! Pre-approval from china for Zhi Kuang. Just one step closer to making this real. I'll write more and post the other pictures we have, but not tonight. I am snozzy tired, and I think I will sleep.

posted by Suz @ 11:06 PM 0 comments

knee deep red jello

It is a very lovely spring day in Chicago and I appreciate the warm breeze and the sun. The glorious sun. I went to the Chinese Consulate to authenticate most of our documents. After this only our I-171 remains. We are progressing and some people who are following the process remark how quickly things are moving, but for me it feels like running through knee deep red jello.

I keep projecting our time line out -- if we do this by then, then this will happen then, and this will go there by then, and they will send this . . . . I don't want to wish this time or any time away, but the feeling of being on hold until Zhi Kuang comes home creeps in. And now I am noticing that some of my projections instead of being early are LATE. OMG, how can I be late! But because the home study did not get to the CIS when I thought that it did we have been pushed back a week. Not much time in a life time, but right now it is forever. I tell myself that it will happen when it happens, but no part of me believes that. I push, push, push. I think D has caught my pushing flu; he is working on his pre-adoption workbook from FTIA and is further along than I am. We need to hand finished notebooks in with our dossier, and he said he doesn't want to hold that up.

Holding on to joy -- the one more step taken -- is a challenge.

On Saturday, we had our first taste of being a mixed race family. D and I were out shopping for C's birthday gift. S was with us. S is my 'little sister;' she is African American and does not look at all like us. She is also really great and fits with us very well. We are comfortable doing things and going places. We picked out some jewelry for C -- her April birthstone on a chain -- and then went looking for the sweat shirt she asked for. In a store named Steve's and Barry's in which everything seems to be $6.95, we looked for a suitable and small IU shirt. It's not that big a store and the three of us were in different rows checking for shirts. I never considered it inappropriate for S, who is 9 almost 10, to be slightly away from us. A male strange came up to her and asked her if she was a foster child.

S told us this during lunch at a Mexican placed where S again didn't eat what she ordered. She has the most unadventurous palate imaginable. Anyway, she told us about her encounter and D and I was flabergasted. We asked what she did and how she felt. Asking S was easy because of our comfort level. She said she was scared. She said "no" to the guy and ran off to find us. We talked about what this guy did and why and what she could have done. The conversation because more and more animated as we came up with more and more outlandish responses to this stranger, and in the end, I think S felt fine about the experience.

But D and I realized how visible we are with S and how visible we will always be with Zhi Kuang. We felt invaded, and felt like we needed to be overprotective with S, let along little Zhi Kuang. It may really take awhile for us to understand and respond in an appropriate way to this.

I think of the parents of one of C's grammar school friends who adopted two boys who are biracial. By the time we met them and they were in school with C, I never they were anything other than a rather normal family. Now, of course I wonder how many scenes like ours they played out. The dad in that family, who went on all the kids' field trips and is just a really great guy, is so comfortable in his own skin that I am sure he knows how to deal with this. He may be a good person to talk to.

D and I are going this weekend out to Connecticut to visit C. For Easter, for Passover, for her 21st birthday! Oh my baby. It would be really nice to get the PA call today or early tomorrow or even on the 18th, C's birthday.

posted by Suz @ 4:09 PM 0 comments

Dragon King

Here is a Kuang Dragon story that Ca found. Something for Zhi Kuang, something for me. Something for me to remember that there is more than is before me. Something to believe . . .





Chinese Dragon Kings



Another common factor in the dragon kings is that they are noted for their beauty and splendor. Most of these dragon kings lived under the water in palaces made of crystal. At their command, there were legions of sea creatures for soldiers and servants.1However, the dragon kings were not all-powerful. They had to answer to the gods and their emissaries.2

Lung Wang was said to be the Chinese Dragon king responsible for the element of fire.7 Many speak of the four main dragon kings of China - Ao Ch'in (Ao Chin), Ao Jun, Ao Kuang, and Ao Shun. Together, these four dragon brothers controlled the waters of the world as well as the rain. Each of them controlled one sea, and the middle of these seas was the Earth.8 The August Personage of Jade tells them where to distribute rain, too. During times of drought and times of flood, these dragon kings were sought out. 9Ao Kuang was said to be the king of the dragon kings. His son, Ao Ping, succeeded him as the king of the dragon kings. However, Ao Ping was killed by Li No-cha in a spiritual battle, for Ao Ping fought for the last emperor of the Shang dynasty, Chou Wang, in the Battle of Ten Thousand Spirits. (Note: This took place at the same time with the Battle of Mu, although that was an earthly battle, not a spiritual one.) No-cha then made a belt out of Ao Ping's tendons. After Ao Kuang learned of his son's death, he was quite angry at No-cha's rashness. Ao Kuang fought No-cha, but lost. After begging for mercy, No-cha spared him, but ordered Ao Kuang to transform into a blue snake. Despite his defeat, Ao Kuang is still revered as the most important dragon king.10

posted by Suz @ 9:22 PM 0 comments

joy

I find it very hard to hold on to the idea that the universe will provide what is right and correct and not sink into despair when circumstances are adverse. I believe that holding on to joy and trusting in your own path with an upturned heart is vital to finding the right place, the next thing, what it is you should be doing.

A recent C story. C wanted so much to study abroad at Lady Margaret's Hall in Oxford next fall. She has the grades and she found a tutor who sounded very good for her. She applied, but found out right after she applied that there were no foreign student places at Lady Margaret's in the Fall. It seems that the brochure she had was somewhat confusing -- I might say, 'wrong' -- and it was clear in one part of the brochure that there were Fall places, but in another part of the brochure it did say that Lady Margaret's only hosted Spring foreign students. She was heart broken because she had devised a complex plan to make it all work out. She moaned and groaned on the phone. When she was done we talked though the circumstances and came up with a host of alternatives. I was not willing for her to give up. I felt that very strongly. We both started getting in touch with anyone we thought could help. I wrote to A and he put C in touch with some guy in some university, who put C in touch with a marvelous person at a Anglican Divinity School in the middle of Cambridge. It sounded like a perfect program for her to be in. It will be lots of trouble for her school-wise -- no credit at the Seminary so she will have to do courses this summer to make up for what she will not get in the fall, but she is on fire excited. I t was as if the universe was nudging her in the right direction, but there was no way of knowing that on the phone that night.

Even in the small things -- Like Zhi Kuang's name. I was so saddened when I found the meaning of the name Kuang, and I let the sadness stop my ideas about her name. Thank the gods for Ca who just let her imagination wander and found the dragon story!

I believe that a path is there. If there is an evil it might be the sadness we allow ourselves to fall into, a sadness that blinds us to what it laid out us. This is such a hard truth for me to hold on to. How can the secret of the universe be joy? Just maybe it is.

posted by Suz @ 10:59 PM 0 comments

quote

I practice and practice and practice, and then hope for luck.

-- a quote without an author

posted by Suz @ 11:14 PM 0 comments

why hari

Why not? We are still in search of a name for this kid of ours. When we named C almost 21 years ago, I was sure about her name. I had dreamed of a child when I was a teen and called to my child using C's name. It was the only name I had to give after that and C has grown into her name beautifully. But exactly how to name a child is a mystery to us. And we are very new parents at this game. And so we are still searching.

And hari? Hari is a name, not even a name, a take on Harry which was what I called our mythical second child when we were trying to get pregnant. I never thought of naming a child Harry, but it felt like a good place holder. We we know that Zhi Kuang is a girl and so I couldn't call her Harry, but hari? It just seemed right.

posted by Suz @ 9:58 PM 0 comments