gone fishing

well, except for the fishing part. Had a traumatic experience seeing an Iron Chef behead a living squirming fish some time ago, and that officially took fish out of my (otherwise entirely vegetarian) diet.

but we're going. Our trip still isn't entirely planned out, but we're packed to camp. We're just going to drive in our desired direction and kinda play it by ear. We've got a book of campsites and phone numbers, and did enough checking about availability to find that it's really not crowded at all the week after memorial day.

I will be away from all phones and computers, and I'm pretty darn happy about that. No offense to any of you guys, of course. If you don't hear back from me in a few weeks, I've probably been eaten by a bear. Or something.

oh, oh, oh

haven't been able to write. been still a little down. p. is making me a milkshake. strawberry with vanilla. fresh. mmmmmmmmm.

tuesday we set off for the great to-us-as-yet-unknown upper peninsula and for our first camping trip together. i can't wait.

last weekend we went for a hike, in the woods, pretty darn close to home. took a trail we hadn't before and ran into all sorts of deer along the way. we ran into only one other person (and his dog) during our entire walk. the deer were very dear. fawns stared at us and even came closer. the mother, more cautious, put her body in front of them. turned a bend past the river and saw one no more than five feet away. it looked at us, curious. beautiful animals.

in michigan, in minnesota, there are chances of seeing bears and wolves and moose, and surely more sweet deer along the way.

right now i wish i could show you a picture of one of our cats, though. p. has finished milk-shaking, and lay down on a couch in my office. the cat is on top of him already, curled up dreamily, legs extended, head cocked. some day i'll post a picture.

can't wait to get out of town, to get all these anxious voices in my head (worries about my summer class, about next semester, about my manuscript) to quiet themselves down.

weekend

tonight's dinner:
grilled artichokes with tomato chipotle sauce
grilled mushroom & garlic tacos


P. is a god with the grill.

I'm still not done grading (I'm very close, though... have to be done by Wednesday, so this can't stretch on too much longer, anyway). We took a long drive today, listened to some Muriel Spark on audiobook, did some shopping (I have new pants, finally, and we have new camping gear), visited a bookstore to browse the travel books, made the drive home, chatted with elderly neighbor, did some cooking, lay in the hammock. This is what summer is about. We're hoping to go off camping next weekend for a while. Trying to decide between a tour of the Great Lakes (to Voyageurs National park via Michigan's Upper Peninisula and Isle Royale) or a somewhat further trek to the wonderous sights of Montana. We've never camped together, before, and P. is skeptical that I actually know how to start a fire that we can cook on, but it will be a blast when it happens. Can't wait.

i'm sad.

i'm not sure why. i'm just sad.

The visit with my parents was okay; sometimes even pleasant. We went for a walk Saturday after lunch, P. with my mom (who walks much slower than dad), and me with dad, who takes very long strides. Dad told lots of familiy stories, especially about grand-dad, his father, who I learned left WW II at the time he did because he won a hand of poker. (The squadron was sending 5 men home, I think; poker was how they decided who went.) He caught hops on cargo planes and toook a ship through the Pacific (where he saw a bit more action), and by the time he made it home he'd officially traveled around the world. But what a way to do it.

the glitch came Sunday morning, with folks insistance I find my diploma so they could have it framed for me. A sweet gesture, but it didnt' feel so good, being told to find it, them watching me pull out drawers of filing cabinets and rummage through my office before I finally found it sitting in its envelope on a book shelf.

They've called 3 times I think since they left on Sunday. Mom asked tonight (after a dozen questions I really didn't feel like answering) if I missed them. I couldn't bring myself to say yes, so I said "I've been really busy" instead. Am a bad person?

In an effort to make me feel better, P. called me to come and see a mess he made in the bathroom, pushed the button on his shaving cream and unintentionally shot it all over the mirror, the toilet, the shower doors. "You're not the only one who's clumsy," he says, adorably. His shaving cream is blue. It looks like toothpaste.

I'm still sad.

double life

My parents come to visit this weekend. I'm anxious. I have lived a double life with them for so long that it's hard not to turn into a different person when they're around. When they speak (especially dad) I find my thoughts wandering elsewhere. When I speak, it is stilloften with some crazed and juvenile desire to make them proud of me. There's not always much space for my speaking (because my folks are both talkers) and I'm thankful for that sometimes, because it takes some pressure off. And at the same time I wish it were possible to have an honest conversation with them, for them to know and like the person I am when they're not around. Of course the visits are a trial for P., too, who'se been pulled unwittingly into this double life with me.

I really should chill out a bit. There are masks I wear at school, and around strangers, and in uncomfortable circumstances. But they're starting to crack a bit. Will I be found out?

on mothers

There's no time like today to write about this, and yet when I sit down to do it, I'm not quite sure how to start or even what I want to say.

I started feeling more compelled to write about this today after reading Vindauga's blog here on birds, bees, and adoptees.

I can't remember a time I didn't know I was adopted. I don't remember any big talk about it. No rugs were every yanked out from under my feet; it seems I always knew. That's a credit to my parents. I guess they must have figured if they didnt' tell me, it might one day slip out, anyhow, and so it was never really a secret to me. I wasn't told very much about my biological parents, only that they were "very young" and wanted me to have a "better life," but I do remember fantasizing about my birth-mother when I was young, trying to picture what she looked like and what she was up to now. I never thought much about the birth-father in the picture.

In first grade, there was a picture of a pregnant mouse (and the same mouse later, with babies) in our science book. When my teacher told us that every one of us was born in the same way that the mouse was, I raised my hand to say that I wasn't born that way; I was adopted. As if it were something special. She thought I was joking, in the way that parents sometimes tell their biological children that they were adoped when they do something out of character or misbehave. She laughed. I went home from school crying. Mom cleared things up, and the teacher apologized, but I think that was the first time in my life that being adopted was something that made me different, but not special.

In 3rd grade, I was requried to do a project on family ancestry for some sort of "Christmas around the world" project that the school was pulling together. Not having any idea of where to go, I became an honorary Italian, because my father had lived in Italy for a while as a young boy, when his father was in the army air-corp. In 4th grade, I had to do a similar project. When I asked my parents where my ancestors were from, they said to just use theirs. I hated those projects.

In 6th grade or so I came upon the word "bastard" in a dictionary. It fit me. Child born to unmarried parents. I told a friend about it, and later when she fell out with me, she told it to a lot of other kids, laughing.

In 7th grade, I was required to write an autobiography of myself, from birth to present day. In itI said my birthmother had died giving birth to me and that's how I wound up adopted. My mom discovered what I'd written and had a long talk to me about it, and made me re-write what I'd written. I remember crying, almost hysterically, and her holding me in her arms. Before I turned the project in, I tore out those pages and replaced them with my original story. I was ashamed.

In 9th grade, when my grandfather died, a young and unthinking cousin said I couldn't be as sad as he was because he wasn't really my grandfather. Another, more distant cousin, my age, who hardly knew me, told him off. He's probably forgotten that. I never will.

In junior high and high school, the subject of my adoption seemed to become more and more taboo at home. When I dared ask about my birth parents, my parents didn't want to say much, and the snippets I got came with warnings. They were very young. 14, even. On the television talk shows, there were reunion stories all the time. When they came on, the channel was always changed. Birth families were called "white trash." Some were drug addicts.

My first year in college, I wrote a letter to the agency that handled my adoption (I found the address in an old address book of mom's) asking them for any non-identifying information they might have about my birthparents. It came back to me in about a month. I must have read through those sheets of paper hundreds of times. "Your birth mother was 18 years old when you were born. She was 5 feet 1 inch tall. She had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Her father was __ years old when you were born. He had brown hair and eyes. He was a banker and a farmer. Your birth mother's mother was ___ years old when you were born. She had ___ hair and ___ eyes. She was a secretary at a local high school. Your birth mother had three brothers. They were ___, ___, and ___ years old when you were born." There was information about my birth father, too. He was 18. He was planning to join the army after high school. There was information about what she wanted to do, too, and about lots of other things, too. My time of birth. My Apgar scores.

I told my parents I'd gotten this information some time after it came. They were a little taken aback. I said things to them like "Did you know that....? " and they claimed they did know. Like how the birthfather had gone to court to try to gain custody but backed out at the last minute. They knew. They never told me. I think my mom cried. They both gave me lots of warnings about what might happen should I attempt to actually find my birth parents.

Some years later, in graduate school, I found them. A kind internet contact and a lot of luck made it possible. I made two separate trips, once to see each of them. I met half-brothers and half-sisters. 6 of them. It turns out I'm Swedish. With a pinch of Irish.

I wound up telling my parents about this, too. It didn't go over well. This time my father cried, too. They felt betrayed. I wrote them a letter, trying to explain. I sent them a book. Neither helped. They were betrayed. I ruined Christmas. When they'd calmed down enough to talk to me, I received more warnings from dad. They might take advantage of me. I should cut things off immediately. Not only that-- mom and dad had been assured this would be a closed adoption, that what I'd done couldn't happen. They'd been advised to leave the state shortly after adopting me, and to "never come back." If they'd had known.... (question trailed off into silence, but still haunts me.) Dad told me I should cut things off. To spare the feelings of him and mom, I said I would. Then I went about doing my own thing and talking about it only with C., and later P., and sometimes also with the brother I grew up with (their biological son) who seeemed to understand.

The relationship I've been able to form with my birthmother, and especially with her daughters, has been a blessing. It's striking how much they remind me of myself at their ages; they were/are involved in all the same activities I seem to have been. The relationship with the other side of my biology is a bit more tragic. I have really nothing in common with him or his kids. When I visited his house, it was dirty and falling apart. One daughter didn't have a bed. Another daugher had been molested as a child at a daycare. One son was in jail. None of the kids was good at school. I felt lucky I hadn't grown up here. I felt ashamed. This man had sold his cattle (he was a future farmer of America) to hire a lawyer and fight for me. When this happened, my birthmother's family decided they'd take me in before they let him have me (my b-mother says he drank a lot and may have used drugs, too). Eventually the lawyer told him he didn't have a chance and everyone signed the papers and sealed my fate.

Every mother's day I feel a bit uneasy. I always call and send flowers or presents to mom, but I've never been able to bring myself to do anything for b-mom, because it would feel like another betrayal. But I do think of her, and of what she must have gone through to make the decision she did. I don't know how she did it, frankly. She hadn't even told her parents she was pregnant until she went into labour.

This year, though, tonight, I sent an email. Thank you for what you did. For my life. For not letting the desperation get to you as I'm afraid it might have with me.... I feel good about sending this out to her. I feel good about having found her, and b-father, and their parents, to let everyone know I turned out okay.... and yet I still feel guilty, too.

I feel guilty also for how much I long for a biological offspring of my own, now that P. and I are trying. I know I'd be fine, happy, even, if we wound up adopting (which we might, depending on a lot of things), but I long for that connection to grow up with.... er, to watch grow.

I love my parents. I just wish it were okay to love all of them, in my way. There's more to say. But not tonight.

dry spell

I've had a hard time writing lately.

My Shakespeare students have been presenting their research projects the past few days. They're stunningly good so far. Very smart, and sooo different from each other. I'm having a hard time keeping them from going over their allotted minutes, though. Had to postpone two of Monday's to today. I'm going to have to act as time police today, and that isn't fun at all. If I have them present the next time I teach this course, I should really schedule at least 2 more days for it.

I'm up to my neck in grading and planning for a summer course I'm teaching. I almost mean that literally.

8 more classes to get through. Then exams. Then grading. Then peace.