"Before You Were Asian"

“What’s that thing on the wall called?” my 14 year old from China asked, pointing at a heavily embroidered panel of antique ceremonial cloth hanging in our living room.

“It’s a Kalaga,” I answered. “It’s from Thailand”

“It’s not Chinese?” Lily said in mild surprise.

“Nope. Not Chinese,” I responded, looking around our living room. “And neither is the Thai temple fragment, or the Japanese origami figures, or the bowl I found in Seoul.”

Some of the items had been collected during my years as an international flight attendant; some, like the Kalaga, were acquired during young adulthood. Purchased right out of college, the Kalaga had been bizarrely expensive and unwieldy to hang; I wonder now what had stirred my need for its presence and rich tradition.

“So”, said Lily, looking around the room at our artifacts, as if seeing them for the first time. “You bought all of this stuff…before you were Asian?”

I nodded, catching her eye and pondering her perspective.

“Yes. Before I was Asian. Before you and your sister got here.”

Suddenly, I was aware that my own, familiar perspective was out-of-synch with my daughter’s world-experience. Clearly, Lily understood the impact she and her younger sister had had on my life-path…but I , just as clearly, was a little out of touch with the POV of an edgy Asian girl growing up fast with a white bread mom.

We gazed at each other in a moment of clarity and mutual recognition. Our assumptions had met, and we silently acknowledged the curious fact that both of us had led separate lives on separate continents before becoming a family. Like every parent, I occasionally wonder what my life would be like today if I hadn’t discovered its meaning in my children. Now, my teenager has begun to connect me, our disparate pasts, what brought us together and the effects on us all. We were teen-talking adoption without ‘going there’, and I was given a glimpse into the broadening perspective of a daughter connecting her own dots. Lily wasn’t being sarcastic. She acknowledged our differences and reaffirmed our pact with her pointed phrase, and I understood what she meant. Before both of our lives intersected, before we took on this international experiment, before we knew how much we could love, before we were brave enough to try, before…I was Asian.

Jean
www.AdoptionToolbox.com

The ADOPTION TOOLBOX Perfect Puzzle Give-Away

A Perfect Puzzle Give-Away...
A book for adopted tweens, plus a NEW book for adopted teens--both addressing honest emotion and the need to find a fit. Both books are FREE to one lucky person...contest begins today and runs through Jan. 30th. Winner will be announced on JANUARY 31st!

Simple Give-Away Rules
1) Sign up to follow Jean MacLeod's Adoption Toolbox BLOG at
http://adoptiontoolbox.blogspot.com/

and / or

2) Join Jean MacLeod's new Adoption Toolbox FACEBOOK page by clicking on the FACEBOOK Badge at: http://adoptiontoolbox.blogspot.com/ (on the right).
***Be sure to click the green 'Sign Up" box once on Facebook

--If you join BOTH the blog and the Facebook page, you will have TWO chances to win the books (shipping is free).
--Current blog followers WILL be automatically included in the drawing, but are encouraged to join the new Adoption Toolbox Facebook page to improve give-away chances.

The Books:

AT HOME IN THIS WORLD (by Jean MacLeod) is "the honest, lyrical reflection of a pre-adolescent girl on what she knows of her adoption from China, and the strength she gains from her acceptance of her bittersweet experience. The book addresses the underlying feelings and emotions that color the world of the international adoptee; it also enables pre-teen readers to put their early lives into perspective, while emphasizing the supportive love that encircles them within their own families":
"I am nine years old and someone a lot like you. Part of my life has been like a puzzle needing pieces, but I am understanding more about myself and my life everyday. This is my story..."

PIECES OF ME, WHO DO I WANT TO BE? (edited by Robert L. Ballard) is a NEW collection of "stories, poems, art, music, quotes, activities and provocative questions for the young adopted person who wants to figure out his or her story. It is a series of experiences, expressions, feelings, hurts, hopes, dreams, and struggles from a wide range of individuals. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, some will make you happy, some will make you feel less alone, some will offer advice, and some will just share. Organized around the idea of putting a puzzle together, there are five major sections, all offering hope, encouragement and empowerment":

1. Gathering the Pieces
2. Stolen Pieces
3. Fitting the Pieces
4. Sharing the Pieces
5. Where do These Pieces Go?

So...

What's NOT puzzling?
Free books for your kids, online connection and great parent-to-parent resources...perfect!

Jean MacLeod
www.AdoptionToolbox.com


CLICK ON
iWrite: Tween and Teens Write about Life and Adoption
A Walk in JURASSIC PARK
Middle Aged Moms & Family Fun

A WISH NOTE HOLIDAY!

A favorite family replay from 2004...

Molly cooked us a wonderful pancake breakfast this morning, to celebrate the first day of Christmas vacation. The conversation turned to gift-giving (and getting!) and card-sending, and what needed to be accomplished this week.
"I need to send Aunt Jennifer a Thank You note for the purse she gave me" Molly said.

"I've already sent her a Thank You for my gift" Hanna said. All eyes turned to the 5 year old. "I sent her a Wish Note."

"What exactly is a Wish Note?" I asked, with eyebrows raised.
"It's when you stand very still and send a person a Thank You in your head" Hanna answered. It was a nice try, performed with chutzpah, and I congratulated Hanna on her creativity.

Wish Notes. A great concept! I am wish-noting you a very Happy Holiday as I type, along with grander wishes for children in need of families, and an end to their deprivation and neglect. I believe in the power of a good wish note, and the good energy of people who send them. If I don't see you over the holidays, I am sending you a *hug*-- did you feel it?? I wished it. And I'm seriously concentrating on wishing you a truly wonderful 2010...

merry merry,

Jean
www.AdoptionToolbox.com

iWrite: tweens & teens write about life and adoption

Recently, in Minnesota, I had the opportunity to run my workshop "iWrite: tweens and teens write about life and adoption" for a group of 26 China adoptees. For 90 minutes, my multi-age workshop participants excitedly shared their creativity, contributed personal comments, and realized the power of owning their life stories. Group energy opens windows and doors for for even the most recalcitrant workshop attendees, and the lure of expressing their personal reality in a new notebook was simply too hard to resist!

It is very positive, and very powerful, to witness a gathering of tweens and teens 'recognize' the possibility that has been handed to them--it's as if they were finally doled out a voice and told they could use it any way they wanted. Based on the series of workshops I've been presenting, I wrote an article for an upcoming issue of Mei Magazine. I told tween / teen readers-

"Ignoring the story of your early life in another place and time isn’t the best solution, even if that option feels really convenient. It’s your life, a vital piece of who you are, and you get to…

OWN IT.

Really. Your story belongs to you, and you get to decide who to tell, how to tell it and how to write about it--your personal ‘voice’ is allowed to explain, explore or embellish the facts, all of the maybes and even the unknowns. You might not have a lot of information about your pre-adoptive months or years, but your feelings and your perceptions about an earlier time in your life are yours to keep, think about and especially, to express."

Last night, I read the chapter excerpt from the new EMK Press book for teens, "Pieces of Me" and was so impressed with the words of the book's contributors. Bert Ballard, the book's editor, reinforced what I've been discovering in my workshops with kids, and what I can share with parents: our adopted children often feel a disconnect with their own life stories, and could use a few expressive tools of discovery. Writing, reading, artwork, music--whatever gives kids the 'connect' to tie their before-and-after adoption selves together, can strengthen a tween or teen's whole persona.

Groups of adoptees in a workshop setting can be a tough audience; I've learned that our kids don't need "adoption talk" crammed down their throats--they need the tools to say what they need to express, and our freeing parental encouragement to own all of their pieces.

Jean
www.AdoptionToolbox.com

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Our New Baby

Honestly, I would never have been in the Humane Society so soon after losing Skippy if my youngest daughter wasn't crying herself to sleep every night, clutching a glass jar containing Skippy's collar, his toy mouse and a few sad tufts of fur... ohh it was grim!

We needed the daily burden of not-being-met-at-the-door-by-our-cat lifted, so that's how I found myself bonding through a crate at MHS with a skinny little tiger kitten. He gazed at me with a great deal of aplomb, reached a long scrawny paw through the wire to grab my finger, and gently held on.
Yep, I was his.
Welcome, Tobi!

Jean
www.AdoptionToolbox.com

Loves Kids...and Mice

I had a cat once that made me crazy and saved my sanity...

In 1996 my family received our referral of a tiny baby in China. A few weeks later, expecting travel confirmation, I ripped open a letter from our adoption agency. We were informed that a Bureau reorganization within China had put our adoption on indefinite hold, and that it could be many months before we were able to bring our daughter home. I had an infant, but I couldn’t see her or hold her or nurture her. I couldn’t soothe her when she cried, I couldn’t be there when she needed me. I couldn’t control what happened to her.

I went quietly nuts.

From the outside, I looked like a fully functioning human being. Inside, I had worn myself hollow. My friend Georgiann, a wise adoptive mom and veteran of several failed private adoptions, looked into my eyes one day and gave me counsel equaling a slap in the face with a leather glove.

“You’ve got to GIVE UP control when going through the adoption process,” Georgiann told me. “This is out of your hands. You have done everything you can do without negatively interfering in the process--now you need to trust.”

So I took a deep metaphorical breath, went adoption-zen and channeled my depressed energy into a tiny kitten that needed a home. Yes, I already had a six year old child; yes, I had an adult cat--but I needed a baby to pull me through and I found a baby cat willing to take me on.

He was lively and smart and tenacious--he ran up walls, opened door-knobs and turned on light switches. When it was breakfast time IT WAS TIME FOR BREAKFAST and he walked up and down my body with his heavy Maine Coon paws until I fumbled my way out of bed to get him his kibble. He leaped on the dinner table and chased the children and was happiest in the middle of a gang of toddlers bent on terrifying kitty-play. This cat owned our backyard and half of our street and he had duties to perform to protect his people and his kingdom. He would howl to get out and he would sit under my window at 5:00 a.m and yowl to get back in. I would frequently snap and utter his cat name in vain, but it didn’t matter. He was incessant and stubborn and daring, and he loved us with all of his big lion-like heart.

He adored the baby we brought home from China and he was thrilled when we brought home her little sister almost four years later. He was part of the family bed and late night feedings; he kept me company during my divorce; he watched over us during our move and met each one of us at the door after a day at school or work. He worried when my eldest daughter went off to college, and stayed reassuringly close if one of us fell ill.

After 13 years of tending to us, he died in my arms. And with him went the constant undercurrent of his furry care and concern. Yeah, he was ‘just a cat’, but he life-lined me and I owed him. I had some lessons to learn before I held my baby from China in 1996, and he was both a step toward letting go, and a step toward loving.

This is much too heavy a legacy for one cat to have to wear, however, so my daughters and I trimmed the profundity down to a simple epigraph that summed our old boy up. We have sent it on to Cat Heaven with him, and we feel sure the recommendation should open some doors:

"Is okay with crazy; loves kids and mice."

=^..^=

XOX

Jean
www.AdoptionToolbox.com

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A WALK in JURASSIC PARK

My friend Krista is dropping her college freshman daughter off at school on Sunday. This highly competent, single working mom has been hit upside the head with a plank: her youngest child will be gone in four days, which means her own life is irrevocably changing. My friend dreads the emptiness she senses just past Sunday…she realizes the opportunities inherent in ‘change’ but Krista has been emotionally gobsmacked; she was not prepared to have to explore her past and present feelings, and she has been completely immobilized by the Big Dinosaur Sitting in her Living Room…

My lifelong friend, Suzanne, flew up from Texas to clean out the house her parents built and lived in for over 50 years. I lived eight houses down from Suzanne for most of my youth, and her parent’s home was as familiar to me as my own. Suzanne’s dad died several years ago, and her mom is now living in assisted living down in Texas. Halfway through the pack-up process, Suzanne tucked herself back into her old twin bed and simply refused to get up. It was a Dinosaur Crisis! Suzanne had stumbled into a pre-history ambush. Every photo, memento and 8mm movie spun Suzanne back to her childhood, and finally forced her to witness the changes in her family (and herself) that had occurred over the last twenty-five years.

Why do we adults believe that we can handle ‘change’ with shopping lists and a few packing boxes? Our adopted children may be on to something--their hypervigilant over-reaction to transition and change may provide them with more emotional preparation than our grown-up disregard for change’s profound effects will ever provide for us. As adoptive parents, we offer a sad or scared child a safe place to talk, grieve, celebrate and plan. Perhaps we need to recognize how change provokes these connective needs within ourselves, too.

Graduation parties, weddings, funerals, baby showers, ‘gotcha’ days, coming-of-age celebrations, even kindergarten round-up; these rituals help us structure our experiences, but don’t quite finish the job of processing. Immediately after my dad died a couple of years ago, a therapist friend gave me some meaningful advice. She said, “You need to take care of yourself right now, and for the months to come.” It was so simple--but it was the heads-up I needed to understand the physical, mental and emotional impact of the grieving-integrating process I was embarking on.

It took three of us to rent Suzanne a storage unit, move her boxes and get her out of bed. Maybe we all need to form posse’s to accompany friends through our personal Jurassic Parks, and help support each other’s encounters with past history and Big Changes.

Understanding the powerful, emotional ramifications of change, and why we trigger so profoundly over both the important and the mundane (old letters between our parents, a toy we gave our 18 year old when he was in first grade, family camping trip memorabilia), opens a door and helps us find a place to put our memories, or our remorse, or the overwhelming love for individuals who have ‘left’ us. Feeling the sting of personal change, transition, or loss may also help us generate more empathic responses for our adopted children when they express (or act out) bittersweet feelings over losing their entire first lives with other families.

Dinosaurs are scary symbols of what we need to either slay or befriend (there is no escaping Jurassic Park, or the previous life choices we have made). Understanding our deeply buried, ‘ancient’ connections to events occurring today, gives us a different perspective on our surprising over-reactions, and unfreezes our ability to act.

Last month, I took my kids back to Dinosaur Ridge outside of Denver, where we gazed at real footprints made by dinos about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. I like the visual symbolism of the Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and Allosaurus footprints we saw walking the ‘Dinosaur Highway’; they remind me that beings may be gone but never forgotten, that extinction--of anything--is a process, and that remains of the past are supposed to be witnessed, studied and touched…

Jean
www.AdoptionToolbox.com

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