What’s at the Top of Your Lifetime Playlist?

Being married to a musician, I probably spend a lot more time listening to, watching, and learning about music than the average non-musician. It helps that I’ve always loved many kinds of music, even though the extent of my musical training and skill ran to a six-week course in the recorder back in second or third grade at St. Agnes Catholic School. I think we learned “Baa-Baa Black Sheep” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” The boys used the recorders as swords – I’m not sure what ever happened to mine.

So when John tries to explain using this chord instead of that one or how Dave Nachmanoff doesn’t use traditional tuning for a lot of his songs, it’s mostly lost on me. He tells me, however, that I have a pretty good grasp of sound for a non-musician, even though I don’t know the musical terms to precisely convey what I mean. When we’re watching those singing competition shows and I say, “It’s not round enough” or “It’s very tinny,” he knows exactly what I mean, and usually agrees with me.

My mom’s family was very musical. I wish I knew what happened to it, but there was a black-and-white photo of her with a number of her 11 siblings, each standing around a tree holding a musical instrument. My mom held a violin – but I never heard her talk about playing it, so that may have just been a pose for the picture. Back at about the same time I was tinkering with the recorder, my Aunt Molly (Modesta) made an album of Spanish songs of which my mother was both very proud and very envious. That, like the photo, disappeared into the wind with my mother’s illness. She spilled stuff on or broke or tore up or otherwise destroyed most of the mementos I – and, presumably Eric and his family – would cherish today.

My niece, Samantha, has quite a vocal talent. Corina and I thought for some time that she would study music and perform professionally, but after high school, she gave up singing entirely, except to occasionally sing with her church group. She sang two songs at my father’s funeral – and we wanted her to sing at my mom’s memorial Mass five years later, but she refused. Cori finally cajoled her into it, and she sang “Ave Maria,” after which all of my mother’s relatives clapped, like it was a recital. I thought the priest was going to have a heart attack. I really wanted her to sing at our wedding reception, but that didn’t happen. John’s stepmom, Gayle, stepped in and did an amazing job covering U2’s “All I Want Is You.”

In spite of my father, who preferred silence to any sort of music, I have appreciated music from my earliest days. And, I have what I sometimes think of as a series of soundtracks from different eras of my life. I put those all together into a musical version of my life story for Eric this past Christmas. I vacillated about giving it to him, as it felt more than a little self-indulgent. Nevertheless, my history is his history, so I gambled that he would find it at least somewhat interesting. I won’t share the whole list here because it was a very personal gift to him. If this blog ever makes it into print as a book, I’ll reconsider. I will, however, give you my intro to Eric’s Playlist:

So the last time I heard “Forever Young” on the radio, it occurred to me that I might make you a “mix tape” of the songs that were important to me throughout my life – and as I put the playlist together (we actually recorded them on cassettes when I was your age), I started jotting notes about each song. My initial goal was to record the whole thing on an MP3 player for you so I could include these descriptive bits as audio recordings – but that became labor intensive, so I decided to move into the 21^st century and do it the sensible way, with an iTunes playlist (or, more accurately, two iTunes playlists).

The songs are more or less in some attempt of chronological order. Some will seem weird to you, no doubt – but all played a key role in my growing up, development as a person, are things I just love, and/or are pieces of music I’ve shared with John. Maybe you’ll enjoy listening to them – maybe just reading about them. Either way, here we go.

Rod Stewart – “Forever Young” –This song is the whole reason I made this playlist for you, Eric. Every time I hear it, I think of you. I’m not sure how well we will ever get to know each other, but I hope you have even a small understanding of how much you are loved and that I wish only the very best things in life for you.

Eric never commented on the playlist, so I have no idea what he thought of it. No matter – it was a wonderful walk down Memory Lane for me. I had a blast playing most of the 92 songs on it a few times each as I put the list together. I say “most” because I included music I didn’t especially like, if it was important for some reason.

So there you have it, the first of my promised posts created from randomly selected words. Still have Bravery and Caves to tackle as topics from the same writing prompt, so stay tuned!

____________________
Laura Orsini is an author who works with other authors to help them make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who is finishing college in Boston this summer. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about her novel in progress, Stan Finds Himself on the Other Side of the World.

Easter Traditions

Today is our first Easter without John’s grandmother, Mary Kelemen. She was an amazing lady, and though she slowed down in the last few of her 93+ years, to the end, Easter was the holiday we continued to celebrate at her home, with formal dinner, fixings, and eveything that entailed. She was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, and their Easter is often on a different day than most Christians celebrate it. This year, for instance, today is regular Easter, while the Russian church does not celebrate Easter until next Sunday, April 8. The latest I recall celebrating Easter with Mary was May 5.

A couple years ago, I was let in on the family secret: the recipe for hrudka, a traditional Slovak dish made and served specifically for the Easter meal. It’s a sweet egg cheese – and I never liked it. Let it be stated that I may be the fussiest eater on the planet, something I never realized until I married into John’s family. “You don’t like that, either?” they’d exclaim through the years, as I just shook my head apologetically.

Side note: the Kelemens refer to this hrudka dish as (phonetic pronunciation) yay-ech-nick, yet I cannot find that word on the web anywhere – perhaps because I have no idea how to spell it. Yet site after site after site uses these exact words to describe its name: “It goes by various names, including hrudka, cirak, sirok, sirecz, and on and on.”

Each component of Mary’s Easter meal had a meaning behind it, coming out of the Czech tradition:

Paska: a special Easter sweet bread, rich in eggs and butter. This is symbolic of the risen Christ, known to many Christians as “the Bread of Life.”

Baked ham: symbolic of the great joy and abundance of the Easter season.

Kielbasa (pronounced kil-bah-see in the Kelemen house, for some unknown reason): a spicy, garlicky, smoked pork sausage that originated in Poland and the Ukraine. It symbolizes God’s favor and generosity.

Red beet horseradish: symbolic of the Passion of Christ, yet typically sweetened with a little sugar since, after all, Christ did rise again.

Salt: used for flavor and to serve as a reminder to Christians of their duty to others.

Butter, molded into the shape of a lamb (ours always had cloves for the eyes): symbolic of the goodness of Christ which Christians should exhibit toward all other living creatures.

Yay-ech-nick: egg-based cheese made into a “ball” and cut into slices. It’s supposed to be served with bitter herbs that indicate the moderation with which Christians should approach all things, but we never had the herbs, so that point was a bit lost on us, perhaps.

Hard-boiled eggs: Mary had the coolest shrink-wraps for her eggs with amazing Russian patterns on them. She would tell us stories about her mom and her aunts painting the same designs by hand on actual eggshells. The eggs symbolize the rebirth of Christ.

Potato salad: not a Czech tradition, but a family one, as John’s stepmom, Gayle, makes the most amazing potato salad you’ve ever tasted.

My family did not have quite as many Easter traditions, at least as they relate to the meal. Every year, we did attend all three days of the Triduum services, the days, beginning with Holy Thursday, leading up to Easter Sunday.

Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper. In the Catholic tradition, Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet before the start of that meal is reenacted during Holy Thursday Mass. Twelve parishoners are selected to be seated at the front of the church as the priests literally bathe their feet. Our family had that honor on two occasions during my growing up years.

Good Friday is the day that commemorates Christ’s death on the cross – the holiest times being noon to 3 p.m., recognizing the time he is supposed to have actually spent on the cross before dying. Good Friday is the only day of the year when no Mass is said anywhere in the world – in honor of Christ being gone for those three days. Most churches have a Stations of the Cross ceremony during the afternoon, where the entire Passion of Christ is reenacted through a prayerful walk around the church, stopping at statues or paintings that depict various events throughout that time of Christ’s life.

Though Easter is supposed to be the Big Day, Holy Saturday is really the Catholic church’s Super Bowl: it is the day all the new people who have been studying and preparing to become Catholic for the last six months to a year are baptized and receive communion for the first time. In college, I sponsored a gal to convert to Catholicism. Mary also sponsored a woman who converted to the Russian church, so we had that in common.

You get a sense of how deep the theological indoctrination runs – and not necessarily in a bad way – in that I have not attended these services for more than a dozen years, yet I can still describe them with great detail.

My family’s Easter Sunday traditions were milder: an egg hunt in our backyard, followed by a midday meal featuring a ham. This continued even into our adulthood, as my mom really loved the searching and finding game. Who knew what happened to the Easter baskets after the hunt was over, so each year, I would head to the thrift store to get new ones for all of us. Mom’s was, without a doubt, the blingiest basket I could find.

I’m not sure I ever heard the Stanfields’ Easter traditions described. If I did, it’s the one detail I failed to commit to memory. I imagine it involves Mass on Sunday morning and a large family meal. I do know that my kiddo has taken after me in the sweet tooth department, so he probably loves the candy and jelly beans.

Speaking of Easter candy… my sister Corina also had a sweet tooth, and a few years ago, she sent her daughter, Samantha, to the store a day or two after Easter to grab a couple bags of discounted Easter candy. She gave Samantha a twenty, expecting her to return with about $15 in change. Things did not go well when Sam came back with a giant bag laden with every candy imaginable and no change. “They were all on sale and I couldn’t decide, so I got one of each,” was her explanation.

Everything being different this year, John, his stepmom, and I have decided to take ourselves out for Easter brunch. If you ever decide to try this, I recommend making your reservation before 9 p.m. on Good Friday, as most people do. Your choices will be (understandably) limited if you wait. It will be quiet, but nice. I’m sure we’ll express gratitude for the abundance with which we’ve been blessed – but we’ll also acknowledge all the people recently gone from our table.

Wishing you Easter blessings and a beautiful spring!

____________________
Laura Orsini is an author who works with other authors to help them make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who is finishing college in Boston this summer. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about her novel in progress, Stan Finds Himself on the Other Side of the World.

Permission to Change Course Occasionally

Blogging can be a lonely business. You write for yourself – but also for others, or why else publish your writing on a blog? And you hope people read what you write. Sometimes they do. When I was posting daily on Eric’s Other Mother, readership was pretty steady. As soon as I moved to posting every other day, readership dropped off dramatically. I’m not holding a pity party – simply pointing out that I was rather surprised by the steep decline that followed what I thought would be a simple shift in frequency.

However, continuing to post every day was not really feasible. For one thing, there’s the time commitment. Some posts flow easily and are complete in mere minutes. Others take quite a bit of time to conceive, write, rewrite, edit, and tweak. Then there are the photos to find, and sometimes rework.

There’s also having material to write about. I do have an idea bank, to which I was adding with some frequency while I was blogging daily. The only thing is that if I want to write a quality piece, I’ve got to be “in the mood” to write, and lately, very few of the ideas in my idea bank have sparked the requisite creativity to come to life on the page.

These ideas include:

Adoptions in my family and Tony’s (my son’s birthfather)
Spending a day in Hoboken getting to know Kathy and Bruce
“No one wants to hear a story about birthmothers” – saving this for Birthmothers’ Day in May
Asking my caseworker if every couple who applies is cleared to adopt
The utter dearth of books and literature by and for birthmoms
Birthfathers – there are several topics under this umbrella
Search and reunion (in general terms)

And many others. I will tackle most – if not all – of them in future posts. That’s the beauty of this blog: although I truly appreciate the readers, I’m beholden to no one in terms of what I write or the order in which I write it. I suppose, if there’s anyone’s approval I’d want, it would be Eric’s. But even as I write knowing he might be reading these posts, he might one day read these posts, or he might one day read the book that comes of these posts – and awareness of him is ever present – it does not dictate what I write.

I have received some really nice feedback from a couple of readers.

Blythe wrote, in response to my post, “The Unique Pain of Being Adopted”:

Thank you for writing this. My husband and I are working with an agency and currently involved in the adoption process (as the adoptive parents). My husband is adopted and it was a closed adoption. After years and years of searching for his biological mother, we finally found her…and he was rejected. Not only by her, but by her entire family. It was devastating for my husband. We have definitely made a point for our adoption to be absolutely open. It is so important and everyone’s right to know where they came from and who they are. I have also been trying to not make this process about us (two people who cannot have biological children because of infertility) and about the child who has no say as well as the birth mother that has made the decision she can. So many emotions… I hope that I can remain selfless in the process.

And more recently, Celeste wrote:

Thank you for sharing your story! I’ve been jumping around reading various posts of yours and now I’m starting from the beginning to read them straight through. 😊 I really appreciate how your blog has been expanding my understanding of what adoption is like for birth parents and adoptees. My husband and I are preparing to become foster parents. Adoption is not our goal, but we know it may very well end up happening. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I look forward to continuing to learn.

Even if Eric never reads any of this, it’s worthwhile to have written for my own peace and processing, as well as knowing that my posts have helped at least a couple other people. Far more people are reading than are commenting, so who knows what other butterfly effects could be occurring that I’ll never know about?

That being said, today I decided to give myself permission to occasionally expand the topics I write about to life in general. I am a birthmother in an open adoption. My kid is brilliant and beautiful, and I have a very nice relationship with him and his family. As adoptions go, we could not be more blessed. That truth runs throughout my life, day in and day out, whether or not I find myself specifically focused on adoption on any given day. So the majority of my posts will continue to be, essentially as advertised, in some way related to adoption. Nevertheless, when I veer off onto the occasional other topic, I’ve realized that I’m still staying true to my own tagline, one birthmother’s perspective. My life, my perspective, wouldn’t you say?

Today, I find myself focused on trying to locate my birth certificate. I had it in my hands just days ago, when I was cleaning and organizing my office in advance of our housewarming party. My husband’s birth certificate arrived in the mail yesterday, so I went to retrieve mine (we’re getting ready to apply for passports) – and I can’t find it anywhere. I know it’s here – probably in a box that got re-stashed in the garage. Or maybe it’s in one of the folders housing the family trees from both my mom’s side and my dad’s side of the family. (I stumbled onto those while unpacking – future blog post, for sure!) My office has never been this organized – so it’s frustrating to be unable to put my hands on this important document.

Deep breath. It’s here somewhere. And now that I’m only blogging every other day, I have extra time to look for it!

The Magic of Gratitude

I wrote in my last post about the power and effects of magic in my life. I also mentioned a house party my husband and I threw this past Friday night. John’s friend, the fantastic guitarist Dave Nachmanoff, played a private concert for our guests, and he closed his show with a song called “Grateful.” Wow – I’ve been humming or singing it ever since.

Then, yesterday, I found a book called The Magic at a yard sale. It’s by Rhonda Byrne, the woman who wrote The Secret. What amazing timing!

In her first chapter, Byrne writes:

I am here to tell you that the magic you once believed in is true, and it’s the disillusioned adult perspective of life that is false. The magic of life is real – and it’s as real as you are. In fact, life can be far more wondrous than you ever thought it was as a child, and more breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and exciting than anything you’ve ever seen before. When you know what to do to bring forth the magic, you will live the life of your dreams. Then, you will wonder how you ever could have given up in believing in the magic of life.

In the next chapter, she writes:

No matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what your current circumstances, the magic of gratitude will change your entire life!

***

Gratitude can magically turn your relationships into joyful and meaningful relationships, no matter what state they are in now. Gratitude can miraculously make you more prosperous so that you have the money you need to do the things you want to do. It will increase your health and bring a level of happiness beyond what you’ve ever felt before. Gratitude will work its magic to accelerate your career, increase success, and bring about your dream job or whatever it is you want to do. In fact, whatever it is that you want to be, do, or have, gratitude is the way to receive it. The magical power of gratitude turns your life into gold.

So there it was, right in front of me. These two seemingly unrelated themes coming together, as if by divine providence, at the precise time I am most ready to receive them and study them and jump into them with both feet. Generally speaking, I’m a grateful, optimistic person. Many days, I offer a mantra upon waking:

Thank you for this day, my life, my liberty, my faith, and all the love in the world. Thank you for peace.

I want to make waking with this mantra an everyday habit. So far, discipline and I are wary frenemies – but I’m getting better at various aspects of it. That’s why I so related to Dave’s song. His chorus contains the line, “but sometimes I forget…”

Here are the lyrics:

I’m grateful for the sun that warms this valley
I’m grateful for the water and the wind
I’m grateful for the cool of summer evenings
And I’m grateful when the morning comes again

But sometimes I forget, so for now I’d like to say
I’m grateful for this day

I’m grateful for the family that surrounds me
And I’m grateful for this time we have to spend
I’m grateful for my teachers and their wisdom
And I’m grateful for the company of friends

But sometimes I forget, so for now I’d like to say
I’m grateful for this day

And I know there may be troubles yet to come
But still I have to smile
And I know our time is short
But I’m glad to be part of the dance, for a while

I’m grateful for the gift of sharing music
I’m grateful for the sweetness of the wine
I’m grateful for the bounty at our table
And I’m grateful for my baby’s eyes that shine

But sometimes I forget, so for now I’d like to say
I’m grateful for this day

And here’s a link to the song itself. Take care if you watch it, though, or you too may find yourself humming it for days!

____________________
Laura Orsini is an author, speaker, and consultant who coaches other authors to make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who is finishing college in Boston this summer. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about her novel in progress, Stan Finds Himself on the Other Side of the World.

Magic and the Art of Vibing

Yesterday would have been my sister’s 49^th birthday. It’s weird to think that in my memory, she will never age past where she left us, at 46, just a little more than two years ago. We had a party to celebrate our new house, John’s and my seventh anniversary, and – at least for me – Corina’s birthday. We were finishing cleaning and making the house look like a home when I realized that most of our photos were still in storage – except for one of John when he was about 10, in his Little League uniform. He’s cute as can be – and I’m guessing thousands of parents across the country have similar photos of their smiling kids. As I write this, I remember that I have several versions of the same photo of Eric as a boy. Jesus – where did the time go? He’s my kiddo, but certainly no longer a boy.

I remember being pregnant with him and trying to see into the future. First, to when he would turn 18 – the legal age at which I would no longer need his parents’ consent to seek him out or talk to him. That, of course, was before we opened our adoption. Even as he grew, I would try to picture him as a teen or young man. I knew I would be 45 when he turned 18, but I had no idea where I’d be or what my life would be like by then. I couldn’t even imagine what he might be like, probably because I wasn’t watching him grow up day by day.

I recall one particular time in my pregnancy when I was focused on this whole concept of the future. I was at Sunday Mass at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Jersey City when the pastor, Fr. Vic Kennedy (amazing that I still recall his name!), was giving a sermon about the evils of magic. I wasn’t aware of using any magical powers at the time, just bored with the sermon and trying to “see” far enough into the future to imagine my still unborn son as a young man. It was impossible, because I didn’t know him yet. But then Fr. Vic started in on the same things my father always carried on about – that anything that smacked of soothsaying, fortune-telling, of any other form of future divining was forbidden by the church. The pastor’s reasoning was that using magic was a way of trying to make ourselves on par with God. I’m not sure if he mentioned Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – but it would make sense if he did.

I remember being incensed in that moment. How dare you? I thought. You’re the pastor and you’re telling these lies. If God didn’t want us to have magic – whether it be in the form of psychic knowledge or the actual ability to make a things appear and disappear – he wouldn’t have given it to us! The fact that it exists and we know about it means he wanted us to have it and use it. Sure – some people use it for evil, but some people use spray paint and fire for evil. You don’t see the church preaching against spray paint or fire, do you? And the worst part is that all of these people sitting here in these pews are going to walk out of here believing you that magic is of the devil!

In spite of my dad, magic has been a part of my life in various forms for as long as I can remember. I was about 6 years old when I caught a glimpse of the tooth fairy. Seriously, I saw a tiny streak of bright blue light flash across the bedroom I shared with Corina. I remember it like it was last night – not 40-plus years ago. Then there have been various magical moments across the years – like my visit to Blarney Castle in May 1998, driving down the highway at midnight with U2’s Joshua Tree blaring at full volume, and swimming in the Pacific Ocean with John.

I saw a psychic when Eric was about 11 who had absolutely no knowledge of him. During the reading, she asked me who Betty was (my mom) and told me that I had a son, about 10 years old, who lived a great distance from me (I was in Phoenix; he was in New Jersey). Some people really have access to this kind of information – and it’s not from the devil. Nor does it mean they’re competing with God – just that they’re tapped into the same information that God has. One of my earliest coaches told me we all have that ability: we all know everything was how she put it. It’s just a matter of whether we choose to tune in to the knowledge or not.

For much of our lives, Corina and I were very in tune with each other’s thoughts. One night, we had the identical dream. And sometimes she would send me messages – particularly when I was at the store and she’d forgotten to ask me to get something (in the pre-cellphone days). I’d grab a bag of ice for no apparent reason, only to get home and have her say, “Cool. Glad you got my vibe about the ice.” If I came home without the ice, she’d be disappointed that her vibing hadn’t worked. It got to the point where we couldn’t play Pictionary on the same team because it was an unfair advantage over the other team. I’d start drawing a straight line and she’d say “Hangar!” Yes – it was just the base, but she knew. She’d draw a circle and I’d say, “Bicycle!” But of course.

Somehow I missed the fact that she was as sick as she was – and that she would be leaving so soon. I think I needed to believe she would get well – we both did – because otherwise, that last year would have been unbearable. Though I still miss her every day, I know she’s OK now and I am so grateful for all the time we got to spend together over the last 18 months. And she still visits with regularity, usually through my dreams. I asked her to give me a sign she was around for the party – and all day, the apps on John’s cellphone kept turning on by themselves. The flashlight. His iTunes. His stopwatch. Would make sense that it was Cori, saying hello.

In my office, I have a giant tie-dyed wall hanging in deep reds and yellows serving as a curtain. In the center is a big yellow Om. It wouldn’t be my natural preference, but Corina would have loved it, so I keep it there to remind me to breathe and to keep her nearby.

According to Gaia.com:

The syllable OM is an ancient Sanskrit letter originating between 1500 and 1200 BC in the Vedas, a collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns sung in praise of the Divine. They were not written at first, but were vibrated into existence using human speech. Teachings on the metaphysics of OM were later elaborated on in the Upanishads, ancient Indian mystical texts. Later, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali categorized the 8 Limbs of Yoga. The sixth of these, Dharana (meaning concentration), described various methods of supporting the mind to achieve single-focused attention. Repeating a mantra, especially the syllable OM, was an important aspect of accomplishing this sixth stage of yoga, or union with the Divine origins. Patanjali taught: “Chant Om and you will attain your goal. If nothing else works, just chant Om.”

Prayer, magic, chanting Om … all of them seem to have the same purpose: to help us achieve our goals. Fr. Vic, I think you were dead wrong. Of course, my sister now probably knows for sure. If we can figure out how to pick up the vibing again and I have a chance to ask her, I’ll let you know.

Parenting Lesson 101: Raise the Best Kids You Can

My friend and personal trainer, Miles Beccia, is an adoptive father. He and his former wife adopted two children from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They are excellent students and seem to be thriving, in spite of the divorce. Most recently, Miles and his current partner, Brittany, welcomed a new baby into the family. As Miles tells it, the older children seem to be adapting well to having a new little sister.

My husband and I were talking with Miles today about the challenges of raising a child in today’s world. Though my question that sparked the conversation was pointed and specific – “How will you handle having ‘the talk’ with your kids, particularly your son, about how to behave around the police?” – Miles’ answer taught me a lesson I forgot, perhaps because I’m not parenting. It’s not about raising a black child in a white family/community/city, or raising black kids in an culture where a disproportionate number of people of color are dying at the hands of cops. It’s about raising the best kids you can at this moment, and preparing them for all of what life may bring their way, good or bad.

Miles has a lovely, very positive outlook on life, and he appears to do everything he can to instill that in his children. To that end, he’s teaching them to respect police officers and that more of them are good than are bad. He’s also teaching them to “turn the other cheek,” but only insofar as they are not being systematically abused. If someone is attacking them with the intent to harm them, they have full permission to fight back. A delicate line, to be certain, but one I think he approaches with grace. He explained to his son and daughter that bullies and name-callers probably don’t have loving families or kind parents or safe homes where they can be comfortable; more than likely they act out because it’s what they’ve learned to do as a defense mechanism, not because they are innately mean. My husband said, on hearing that, “Can’t imagine how different my life would have been if I’d heard that while I was growing up.”

I don’t know – have never asked – what Miles and his ex-wife know about their children’s birth families, whether they know who the birthmoms are or still have any contact. Partly, it’s just my way not to be nosy. I would have made a terrible investigative journalist, as I generally avoid asking prying questions unless I know a person really well or they seem to be giving me the green light to ask. I’m sure Miles would answer any questions I have, and perhaps I will ask them someday, if they come up organically in a conversation.

Adoption is an interesting way of making a family – but like all families, every family created through adoption is different. Certainly there will be some overlap, in terms of the kinds of issues that arise with adoption. Yet, families built through international adoptions will face challenges and, perhaps, obstacles that those involved in domestic adoptions don’t typically experience. In the end, however, families are just families. Some are better adjusted than others; some are happier; some are more secretive. And yet, most of them are doing the best they can, even if their attempts fall far short of what the rest of us would judge to be the mark. Parenting is not an easy gig – my hat is off to my son’s parents, Kathy and Bruce; to Miles; to my sister, Corina (tomorrow, March 23, would have been her 49^th birthday); and to all the parents who go out of their way to make sure their children are equipped to grow into the best adults they can be.

Enjoying Life NOW

I’m working on a book for a client about career advancement – essentially a primer for how to move up from the lower levels through middle management to senior management. It’s a good book, written by a man who’s been in the trenches. He’s been dragged through court, threatened by a gun-wielding former employee, and hired and fired more people than most managers have reporting to them. I believe this book has its place.

I also see that the world is changing. People complain of millennials as lazy, unfocused, wanting to be coddled. Those attributes may well apply. But then I listened to my 23-year-old son talk at the holiday dinner table about what he didn’t want in a job: 16-hour days reporting to people less intelligent than he – people who would, because of their position on the engineering totem pole, get to take credit for his creative ideas and resourceful solutions. How does he know this? Because it has already happened to him while working several internships before he’s even finished college.

Eric’s father, Bruce, is old school. He came up in a time when all of the concepts in my client’s book were in full force, because the primary way to succeed in the world was to go to college, get a job, and then make your way as high up the food chain as you were able. That may be Eric’s goal, too. But it might not be, and I sense a bit of tension around the idea that Eric may be rejecting the old ways.

I, for one, applaud him.

Perhaps the kids of his generation are less driven than I am or his parents were or, most certainly, than my husband’s grandparents were. Is that necessarily a bad thing, though? Maybe – if you still define success by how high up the corporate ladder you can climb. But what if success is driving your own boat? What if it means having a life you enjoy right now, rather than a life you plan to enjoy down the road someday, after you retire at 6o or older? What if it means traveling the world and/or running your own small business instead of buying a car or going into debt for a mortgage or collecting all of the things we older people associate with “making it”?

Personally, I suspect that this millennial generation has discovered a secret many older people only wish they’d stumbled across a lot sooner. Investing in experiences – rather than a ginormous diamond ring or a vast estate with a lap pool – may actually be much more meaningful and memorable.

To be sure, it will be interesting to watch and see how these next dozen or so years of Eric’s life unfold. Regardless of which path he decides to take, I’m rooting for him.

Is It a Dream or a Memory?

As a little girl, I used to have a recurring dream about being in a car driving up, up, up over a steep hill, kind of like the cartoon image you see of those crazy rollercoasters with extreme drops. It would terrify me every time – I would sit, white-knuckled, in the backseat, as nervous as if I were driving. Usually, the dream was about a driving vacation – we were never at home when these steeply hilly situations occurred. An alternate route would be available, but it would be so far out of our way that my dad (or whoever was driving) would elect to take the steep, steep hill, rather than take the very extra-long way around. To this day, I find driving up and over steep hills a bit stomach clenching.

I must have mentioned this dream at dinner one time, because I remember my mom being convinced that I was remembering the drive she and my father made from Detroit to Phoenix when I was mere months old. As I heard the story – and perhaps vaguely recall seeing in a photograph – my folks packed up what I imagine must have looked like the Beverly Hillbillies’ wagon with every stick of furniture, dish, and item of clothing they owned, and hitched it to the back of their 1967 Chevy Impala.

Then they headed west.

I’ve made that drive, starting farther north and east. Regardless which way you go, there are some pretty scary stretches, particularly if you’re pulling a perilously packed trailer stacked to the rafters behind a low-riding boat of a car. As my dad described the journey, he was terrified at several points as the trailer wavered severely that it was going to topple over.

So I suppose there could be some analogy between that actual journey and my crazy, recurring dreams. But is it really possible that I remember something that happened when I was less than 4 months old? My earliest conscious memory, also car related, is of pulling up to the house where I grew up in the backseat of my mother’s Oldsmobile, all squared off and olive green. I had to have been at least 2 years old when that would have happened.

My husband swears he remembers being bathed in the kitchen sink as an infant – so his conscious memories go back a lot further than mine do.

Dreams are weird things. I often balk when a fiction author uses a dream as a device, as it tends to feel like lazy writing, unless the whole story somehow involves sleep and the dream process. I feel the same when movies or TV shows use them. Yes – the screenwriter or author is God, creating the characters, story, and scene – so he or she should know their character well enough to know what they’d dream, but it’s never just a dream. It’s usually a plot device. There’s almost always a special or hidden meaning under the dream, and it usually feels very manufactured, as if the author couldn’t be bothered to write dialogue or paint a scene depicting whatever the dream is supposed to help explain away.

Dreams can be harbingers of events to come; they can be reflections of memories; and they can be patchworks of the past, present, and future – as Mr. Scrooge experienced. Sigmund Freud famously expounded upon universal dream symbols, but I’m not convinced. While I have ABSOLUTELY no authority on this subject, it seems to me that accurate dream analysis is a highly subjective art, as dream symbols probably vary from person to person, from geographic location to geographic location, and from culture to culture. For instance, dreaming of an owl in certain cultures has ominous prophetic meanings, while in other cultures, the dream might be viewed as a positive message.

My sister and I were not twins, but we most definitely had a psychic connection, to the point of having the exact same dream on the same night. She’s been gone for more than two years, but I still dream of her often – and she is always beautiful and healthy and smiling in those dreams. Sometimes they are so real, it seems I could physically touch her.

I’ve never spoken with Eric about his dreams – he’s a fairly analytical person, so it’s possible he might not tap into them very often. On the other hand, perhaps he’s like my husband and has memories that go back to almost his earliest days. Either way, it would probably make for an interesting conversation. Who knows? Maybe we’ll actually have it one day.

Back to School (Temporarily) at 50

I recently attended a writers’ conference at Arizona State University. First time back on campus in many years, at least as a student. And I was most definitely a student for those couple days – commuting, parking, backpack, lunch at the student union, the whole enchilada. I was wandering around looking for a specific building, trying to appear nonchalant about it – apparently without much success, as one young man pulled his earbuds out and asked me if I was lost. Thoughtful kid to even notice, let alone take the time to help out a stranger who could easily have been his mom. “Why – do I look lost?” I asked him.

He grinned and nodded. “Yeah, kinda.” Then he proceeded to walk me in the direction of the building I was seeking. We chatted a bit on the way. His name is Ernesto and he’s from a tiny town called Rio Rico, not far from the U.S./Mexcio border. I mentioned that I’d gone to the University of Arizona, ASU’s arch-rival. He feigned upset and pretended to walk away. Then he told me he’d started at UA – makes sense, as it’s a lot closer to his hometown than ASU. But he didn’t like it. Felt it was cliquish and uninviting. A hard place to blend in and make friends. I told him that was funny to hear, as I’d thought the same thing about ASU back 30-some years ago when I was considering applying to schools.

At any rate, he’d transferred to the big city college at the start of this school year, and hasn’t looked back. The sheer size of the Phoenix area still overwhelms him, but he likes the campus, the town of Tempe where ASU is located, and the people much better. I say good for him for knowing his own mind. Reminded me a bit of Eric’s comments that so impressed me during that one dinner we shared with his family back in December:

He’s in his senior year at Northeastern University in Boston, majoring in environmental/civil engineering. At the one family dinner we shared with him, Eric explained a bit about his process for choosing Northeastern. He and his dad had gone to tour a number of schools in Boston, and Eric found himself paying particular attention to the demeanor of the students on the various campuses. Immediately he rejected a couple of schools, simply because none of the students looked even remotely happy. That’s a pretty significant level of awareness for an 18-year-old. And I couldn’t have been happier or prouder to hear him describe this thoughtfulness.

So chatting with this kid, Ernesto, of course reminded me of Eric. I rather suspect that my son would be the one to pull out his earbuds to help a lady the age of his birthmom find her way around campus. He’s charming and considerate that way. I was also just reminded of him in general, being on that campus again. While I never attended ASU as an undergrad, I did take part in a summer program for smart kids back in high school – that’s where I met my amazing friend Jane. There’s a reason they segment school into various age groupings. We might have been in a gifted program, but we were still a bunch of high school kids, running amok on a college campus. So you might not be surprised to hear that one of the things that delighted us that first summer was going up to the roof of the Modern Languages building and making a game of trying to peg the people below with Skittles. I never liked the taste of those candies – but I still chuckle at times when they come up in conversation.

I did grow up and move on to become a real undergrad. I look back now and wish I’d taken a lot more advantage of the speakers and concerts and general-interest programs that were offered on the campus. The good news is that our new house is pretty close to ASU, so we still have the opportunity to do those things. Although, the attitude and demeanor of college campuses across the country seems to have changed so much since I was in school.

When I was at the UA, mall preachers would hold signs and shout at anyone who’d listen. Now, they are confined to a tiny corner – and I suspect their speech is closely monitored. I had several teachers I despised for various reasons (mostly opinions with which I disagreed) – today on certain campuses, I could file a grievance that might actually affect their pay and status and even tenure prospects. A-list comedians are opting out of stops on college campuses because the PC Thought Police are wringing every last ounce of fun out of comedy. Thoughtful commentators are being labeled as extremists, as the actual extremists – uninformed students – shout them off the stage. The campus protests of the ’60s were before my time, but I suspect from the videos I’ve seen and what I’ve read that people were at least allowed to air their perspectives – even if it was through a megaphone or while bike-locked to a chain-link fence.

So things are different now.

And I really have become my father. I was making my way to the student union for lunch, when I suddenly heard the rumblings of something that sounded like a cat being murdered. Turns out, whoever determines the tunes that get played in the breezeway in front of the student union has what my professional guitarist husband would call comically juvenile musical taste. It was thumping, bumping, ear-splitting EDM (electronic dance music) – and no one even seemed to notice. The 19- and 20-year-olds carried on their conversations, shouting to be heard, but without flinching or batting an eye.

I also noticed something I’d never seen before that made me feel old: skateboard lock racks.

Then I headed to the library. Some things have stayed somewhat the same. Though many technology options abound that didn’t exist when I was in school, it’s still a quiet place where studious kids seem to congregate. One cool thing was the school’s prominent encouragement toward sustainability and recycling all across campus, including a large sign painted above the photocopier in the library lobby. (I do, however, take exception to the encouragement to print anywhere.)

The kiddo is getting ready to finish up his college career this summer and make his way out into the wide, wide world. I imagine that one day, as he looks back to his university days when his 7-year-old cousin Parker is a college senior, things will have changed even more. As well they should – it’s the only constant in life.

The Stuff of Life

My husband and I moved into our new home a little over a month ago. Because the floors weren’t finished when we moved in, we’ve had to take our time unpacking – making it more of a room-to-room effort than a whole-house project. It’s interesting to look at the things we’ve acquired and moved, apartment to apartment and house to house. We have items from our childhoods, both our parents, John’s grandparents, my sister and her first and second husbands – along with the things we have personally added to our now rather sizable collection of stuff.

I was reminded a few months ago how personal a collection of stuff really is. I was on my way home from a book festival, my SUV full of all of my “important” book festival supplies: tables, chairs, table cloths, stands, wood crates, books, bookmarks, lights, pens, etc. Stopped at a traffic light, I noticed a man next to me who was hauling his own cart full of stuff – as homeless people in the Phoenix area (and probably other places) are sometimes inclined to do. It occurred to me as I watched him attempt to maneuver his over-full shopping cart that although I might think the things in that cart are just a pile of junk, to that man, they may be the world. Who’s to say what has value to someone? Chances are he might have found my books – the most personally valuable of the possessions I was hauling that day – unimportant, perhaps worthless.

We found out recently that Eric is going to be an uncle. His sister Jill and her husband are expecting a little one in August. Now that they are just about full-time empty nesters (Eric will graduate from college in May), Kathy has alluded to the fact that she and Bruce might be thinking about downsizing and moving closer to their daughter and new grandbaby. She told me that when they first began talking about this eventual possibility a handful of years ago, she was worried that Eric would resist the idea because the home where they live now is the only house he’s ever lived in. He was fine with the plan; it was Jill who was a bit upset. “You can’t sell the house where we grew up!”

But it’s what we do: we move through the cycles of life – and often that includes physically moving house, as the Brits say.

The thing is that with downsizing comes the sorting of a lifetime’s worth of things. Much of my stuff stayed in my folks’ garage until we finally moved my mom into a nursing home and sold her house – then those inevitable decisions could no longer be postponed. Presumably some of the things that would need to be sorted at Kathy and Bruce’s house are Eric’s, and he will have to make those same decisions about what to keep and what to sell or give away. Little League trophies, books, photos, sports equipment. It all mattered once upon a time, but does it still?

When I moved back to Phoenix from New Jersey, I brought only what I could transport in my Volkswagen Passat and the car carrier on top of it – namely, my dog Moondanz, my cat Gracie, my Mac, a couple of boxes of photos, and my clothes. The rest of it went into storage. I was temping and money was tight when I first arrived, so I within a few months, I didn’t pay my storage bill. All those things that had been too precious to get rid of at the time of the move were impounded – and gone. The vintage chalkboard Eric’s birthfather had bought for me at the indoor swapmeet down along the 1/9 (now a multiplex movie theatre). The very cool totem pole I’d bought during the six weeks I temped in Washington, D.C. for a white collar defense attorney with a Napoleon complex. Boxes and boxes of books (remember how valuable I mentioned they were to me?) and scads of craft supplies and completed crafts. All of it likely won in an auction by someone who might have gone on to star in the A&E series, “Storage Wars.”

At the end of the day, most of it is really just stuff. You often hear the question, If there were a fire or flood and you could save only one or two items, what would they be? After my husband and our pets, the only really important thing to me is my laptop (more specifically, the contents of said laptop) – but having paid a lot of money to restore it following a recent crash, I’m getting much better about automatically backing up all of my files, so even the things on the laptop are already recoverable.

Life itself is what’s precious. The things we collect while we live it just make it a bit more comfortable in the process.