Writing My Wrongs

Well Read

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.  ~Edward P. Morgan

My master bedroom is currently littered with piles of dirty laundry. My hair dryer plugged into the bedroom wall via a long extension cord rests on a pile of towels.  The bed is unmade. The cherry wood Ethan Allen armoire drawers are open. Clean laundry spills out over the curved edges. Brighton tin heart-shaped boxes are sprinkled across the shelves, jewelry overflowing. An errant role of toilet paper is resting on the floor of the master bath. The master of that bath was too lazy to place the paper on the roll.

Downstairs, in the ground level foyer, more laundry piles.  Some are clean. Some are dirty.  My home office, adjacent to the ground level foyer, is a dangerous wasteland of boxes, books, and papers needing to be filed.  An unconstructed box, delivered just days ago from uhaul.com, rests gently against the green walls. My sons drawings, done with a sharpie black marker that he later used to give himself a mustache, adorn the boxes.

The black wire garbage can, toppled over thanks to my cat, is vomitting out empty Vitamin Water bottles and discarded Starbucks coffee cups.

I was supposed to clean today.

I didn't.

Instead I read a book. I read the entire book titled The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards.

I warn any mother who has lost a child to adoption to be very leary of this book. Oh, no offense to the author, the warning is not intended to be a negative reflection of the book.  In fact, its quite the opposite.  It is a good story. Well written. Good characters. Interesting plot. I did enjoy the story.  I bought the book last night and finished it tonight. Thank you Lifetime TV for all your sappy advertisements on the made for television movie.  Again, good story.

However, the level of loss and grief felt by Norah Henry, the mother, is painfully similar to the feelings felt by mothers, like myself, who have lost our children to adoption. 

I have more to say but I honestly cannot form words.  The book touched me in places I should stop touching.  I really need to work on that masochistic tendancy of mine.

Off to begin my next book - The Road by Cormac MacCarthy.

But Moms, consider yourself warned on that Kim Edwards book. My eyes still hurt from crying.

Todays Read

“..techniques prove that babies remember their mothers’ voice and face within thirty-six hours of birth. Within days, an infant recognizes and prefer not only his mothers voice but also her native language, even when spoken by a stranger.  You might think this knowledge comes from postpartum interactions – quick learning indeed. But a newborn doesn’t recognize his fathers voice, indicating the neonatal preferences reflect learning before birth. The auditory system’s rapid development in utero and the watery wombs excellent sound system surround the fetus in a symphony. Bathed for nine months in his mothers vocalizations, a babies brain begins to decode and store them – not just the speakers tone but her language patterns. Once born, a baby orients to the familiar sounds of his mothers’ voice and her mother tongue, and favors them over any other. In doing so, he demonstrates the nascent traces of both attachment and memory. “-  A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fair Amini, M.D., Richard Lannon, M.D.

My Weekend Read

A friend in my novel writing class recommended this book to me. I have put it on hold at the local book store and will pick it up this evening. Interesting to me for several reasons...the most obvious being I can relate to the story line. In addition, my own book I am writing is a similar story.

Will give a review later in the weekend. (I am likely to finish it by Sunday).

You remind ME of ME - by Dan Chaon

"You Remind Me of Me begins with a series of separate incidents: In 1977, a little boy is savagely attacked by his mother's pet Doberman; in 1997 another little boy disappears from his grandmother's backyard on a sunny summer morning; in 1966, a pregnant teenager admits herself to a maternity home, with the intention of giving her child up for adoption; in 1991, a young man drifts toward a career as a drug dealer, even as he hopes for something better. With penetrating insight and a deep devotion to his characters, Dan Chaon" explores the secret connections that irrevocably link them. In the process he examines questions of identity, fate, and circumstance: Why do we become the people that we become? How do we end up stuck in lives that we never wanted? And can we change the course of what seems inevitable?
In language that is both unflinching and exquisite, Chaon moves deftly between the past and the present in the small-town prairie Midwest and shows us the extraordinary lives of "ordinary" people.

Dawn of Reality

As I sat in the car awaiting my sons to cease playing morning soccer and get ready for school, I heard my oldest son scream.

“Oh my god! It’s an A380!” he bellowed as he looked to the sky.

Interested only in getting the boys in the car and to their school bus stop I paid little attention to whatever was in the sky. Living so close to an airport, I have become bored and accustomed to A10s, passenger planes, small Cessna’s and more. I don’t think I would even be impressed if I saw a UFO.

The boys finally got in the car and my oldest son insisted on calling his father.

“DAD! I just saw an A380!” he said rather excitedly.

“Not possible” said his sleepy father who had been awakened in his Minnesota hotel. “It’s too big to land at the airport. It wouldn’t be in our area”

“Dad, I mean it. It had four large engines, double decker, it was HUGE. I KNOW it was an A380” my son insisted.

“It couldn’t be.” said his father firmly.

After more dialogue my son disconnected but insisted to me that he knows what he saw. I believed him as I personally wouldn’t know any better and unlike his father, was in no position to doubt him.

We reached the school bus stop. I unloaded back packs from the car, put a coat on my youngest son and started the morning chatter with the other moms.  As we walked toward the stop, above me, in the cloudy morning sky appeared the largest airplane I have seen in my life. It was quieter than I expected but as my son indicated a mere few minutes earlier, it had four large engines. Flying low, it gave the appearance that I could touch it or that it would soon land in the parking lot of the school.

I yelled to my son who quickly turned around and began screaming with joy. From behind some trees one of the fathers began to scream “Its an Airbus 380. It is touring. It’s the largest plane in the world right now”.

My sons began jumping up and down and screeching and the father walked toward us. After some conversation we learned that it was indeed an A380 and that while it would not be a regular visitor to our area it was making a few fly-bys due to the fact that its engine was built at our nearby Pratt and Whitney.

My son was quite pleased with himself for having identified it and had to call his father back.

What does this story have to do with adoption, my blog readers may wonder?

The entire experience reminded me of the book I am reading as well as the witnessing of the dawn of adoption reality rise in the hearts and minds of a few friends. You know, those moms that say "adoption is best" or "they did a good thing"..."they are okay with losing their child".  (You know, they are ones with the red adoption koolaid stained mouths)

Its interesting to see, over time, how they change their tunes. How when faced with facts, and research and reading the veil is lifted and they realize what many of us have realized. Adoption, closed adoption, the adoptions with closed records, changed names, and all the other distasteful aspects are NOT good and are not helpful.

But those two topics are for later posts. I need to finish reading the book.