A New Life

It's time to drag this blog out again and record my new life as a sister with real relatives. Relatives with whom I share DNA.

I used to blog here daily and multiple times each day. Then I met the Jazzman and didn't have any funny dating-for-oldies stories to tell. I started working from home, so didn't have input from anywhere outside my brain. And the motivation faded. I started my other blog to showcase the garments and bags and gifts I make. And this blog just fell by the wayside.

Now my world has not only turned upside down, but begun to spin and spin and spin. My brain is full and whirling every day. On days when I need to spend hours at the piano perfecting very difficult music, I am drawn to the computer to do more research and to my phone to text my sister. MY SISTER!!!

I have a sister!

I have someone who understands how I feel about being given up for adoption because she, too, was given up for adoption.

I have a sister who is as thrilled to learn about me as I am about her.

Life is oh-so-very good.

So this blog is being pulled back into use so I can document this new journey. We're both aging. Time is moving on whether we want it to or not. And I don't want to forget the wonder of learning, at age 65, that I have a sister.

Stay tuned.

Late Discovery Adoptee

I started this blog post on July 14, 2015. And then life and busy-ness got in the way and I forgot all about it. Now my life has changed completely and in searching all the blog posts I had written about adoption, I found this again. So I'm publishing it today, nine months later, before starting my next set of blog posts about my newfound sister.

Here's a bit about Kevin Gladish's blog:

A friend of mine in Chicago emailed me a link to her friend's blog. He's a Late Discovery Adoptee. There should be no such term!

Why can't parents read more about adopting before taking it on. Why can't they understand: We know. We know! Deep inside each adoptee is a sense of dis-ease. A sense of not belonging. A sense of being, always being, in the wrong place. (This is merely my opinion, based upon the reading I've done. I don't have a doctoral degree to validate my "facts.")

As I read this beautifully written blog, one statement Kevin made struck me this morning.

I know there are those who will tell me that being adopted "shouldn't matter." Though I have never once heard or read this sentiment from a fellow adoptee, it comes up as a thing people say to be helpful. After all, you might argue, I was chosen. I was wanted. I was given opportunities that I may never have had otherwise. I was loved. So why should I insist on digging up all this stuff, when none of it should matter?

The answer is that it does matter. Plain and simple. It matters to me. It matters to a great many of us.

I wasn't chosen. How can you tell me over and over again that I was chosen.

My parents chose to adopt a baby girl. It had nothing to do with me, personally.

Here's how it went for me:

Daddy was a doctor. He told all his OB/GYN buddies that he and his wife wanted to adopt a girl. (Yes, OB/GYNs were all men in the mid-20th century.) He let them know that if they had a pregnant patient come in who wanted to give up her baby and had made no plans, that they should call him.

I don't know if my birthmother ever went to the doctor after escaping from Gloucester, Massachusetts, to Orlando to live with her brother after discovering she was pregnant. She was 37 years old and had never been married. Her mother had died when she was 16 and her father, whom she adored, when she was in her early 20s.

And now I stop this post and continue tomorrow with my new story. I hope you'll read that and marvel in it, as I have been doing for a week.

In the Mind's Archives

This morning on my way to work I was trying to remember today's date. I could remember that the Thursday while we were on vacation was 9/11. The Thursday after that would have been the 18th, plus Friday, Saturday, Sunday made today's date the 22nd.

My birthday is a 22nd. Each month, if I think about the date on the 22nd, I count ahead to see how many months until I'll turn the next year older. Ticking fingers down to count, I realized that in nine months I'll be 65.

And then it struck me. Nine months = pregnancy. Right around this date 65 years ago, my mother was having an affair or a one-night stand or a loving relationship with or was being raped by the man who provided half of my genetic makeup.

In adoption, those are facts one rarely knows. I was lucky enough to have the obstetrician who delivered me–who arranged the private adoption–procure and release my hospital records to me in the mid-80s. I knew my birthmother's name. From those records, I was able to find her. She wanted nothing to do with me and said she had blocked me and my father from her mind. She had two brothers, neither of whom ever had any children, and I was the only child she ever had. So it's a great big dead end.

But to not know leaves holes in one's soul.

Would my life be different if I knew it was a loving relationship? That's what I like to project. What if I knew I was the product of rape? I don't know. If I were caused by rape, I really wouldn't want to know. But I don't think it would change anything.

The only thing I think would have changed how I developed and grew up would be if I had lucked into an adoptive mother with the emotional ability to make me feel loved and secure.

That's my greatest wish/dream/fantasy. To feel loved.

That would have made a tremendous and wonderful difference.

I wonder who I'd really be.

Mile Upon Mile, Minute Upon Minute

I'm an early riser. Actually, I'm an early waker. I normally wake around 5:30 or 6:00 (at first light) and then lie in bed with my iPhone or iPad until the Jazzman wakes around 7:30. Once he rouses, we sit and discuss the day until he has to get up to go to work. It's a precious and valued part of each day for me.

For the past 5 years, most Mondays have included a 7:00 p.m. rehearsal in Cleveland. I would leave home no later than 5:00 to allow for unknown traffic problems along the way, gassing up, if required, and then enough time to park the car, use the restroom, greet a few friends, and get settled in my assigned seat before warm-up. After rehearsal, I would rush to the car and start driving, arriving home at 11:15. (Concert weeks added multiple drives to Severance Hall, an extra 5 miles and half hour.) This same scenario occurred in sun, clear moonlight, clouds, rain, snow, sleet, 40mph winds, no traffic, heavy traffic, and accidents that stopped me in my tracks for an hour. Many nights I would be so tired that I would slap myself rhythmically - face, legs, top of head - to avoid falling asleep. A few times I stopped at the lone rest area along the turnpike to try to sleep for a few minutes, but I was always afraid of something bad happening to me, so would give up after five minutes and keep driving.

Every Monday morning when I looked at the clock and saw anything less than 6:30, I would wonder what my drive home would be like. Would I be able to stay awake for the drive? I would lie here for a few minutes wondering if I could possibly go back to sleep. (Nope!) Then I'd give up and go about my morning quiet time.

If I was sick - as happened yesterday - I didn't have to worry that if I wasn't better by time to leave, the next Monday night I'd have to endure an Individual Testing Session with the director - one of the most vilified aspects of membership in the chorus.

Yesterday morning I woke up. Period. I woke up. I didn't need to worry about the time. I didn't need to worry about whether I was rested enough to drive the 65 miles there and 65 miles back in safety. I didn't need to look at the weather forecast. I didn't need to think about my car's age or the cost of gas and toll or the condition of the turnpike. I just woke up.

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As much as I hated resigning from the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, doing so created a stress-relief incident that is probably the greatest I've never experienced. The photo above is Cleveland's Severance Hall, snapped quickly while I waited at the traffic light on one of my final drives to University Circle for a rehearsal.

The Why and Wherefore of Adoption

I'm engaging in nostalgia this week as I wander around Interlochen Arts Camp and observe young artists developing and honing their skills and their passions.

And, of course, as I write that I have to look up the definition of "nostalgia":

a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time:

My nostalgia is not for what was but for what might have been. It's not for the happiness of a former time, but rather from actions that might have allowed happiness in a former time.

I fantasize about having been adopted by a family who was cultured and musical. I have often said that I was lucky to have been adopted by a family that recognized my talents early in life. But they didn't know how to best nurture those talents. (And I also acknowledge that there is more to nurturing talents than just lessons and training. There's emotional nurturing, also.)

Sometimes, in pondering "life" and "how did I get here", one thinks about those notions of having a life after a life. I'm not saying I believe in the concept of reincarnation. I truly don't know what I believe. But I hear the stories of there being legions of spirits flying around who need to come back to earth to complete their mission. Or something like that. And I wonder why I was chosen for this particular family. If I was, indeed, chosen. For this family.

And as I ponder "why didn't I have a different family," I have to stop and say—almost aloud in my head—It's Not All About You!!

Maybe the fates or the universe or God or whatever chose not that family for me, but me for that family. Or for that man, that wonderful, nurturing daddy, who had a marriage he felt trapped in. He loved me to his core, and he nurtured me as no one else did. He gave me a sense of being loved, wanted, and valuable. Where my mother taught me that I was dumb, ugly and incompetent, he taught me that—at least in his eyes—I was cherished and precious.

And what did I give him? I have no idea. He was not a man to share his feelings. But I'm sure having me mirror his feelings right back to him was significant in his life.

So what if I didn't get a sound footing that put me in a career path the end of which would bring me retrospective joy. I made it through. I accomplished not giving up. I have good kids and grandkids that I'm able to encourage and nurture and—hopefully—guide.

And I was loved, without equal, by Daddy. The most important man in my life.

Maybe he was the why I was adopted by this family.

And that's good enough.

Photos: At top, an Interlochen practice room where a high school string bass player works on his repertoire. Bottom, panorama of Green Lake with oncoming storm whipping up the waves.

Sound the Call to Dear Old Interlochen

There are few places in the world that bring tears to my eyes just by walking on their hallowed ground. One of these is Gloucester, Massachusetts, where 300+ years of my ancestors walked and fished and built homes for their fellowmen. Another is Arlington National Cemetery, where we commemorate so many Americans who gave their lives for this country. The one I'm experiencing this week is Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan.

As I walk around this hallowed campus, I listen to music emanating from every building. The music fills my soul. [I acknowledge that other art forms are similarly nurtured here, but my life is music–that is my focus when I'm here.]

My younger son came here for the first time in 1989, having just turned 14. He had challenges at home after his father's and my divorce eight years earlier. He was tied at the heart to me, but we were constrained to ten weeks together each summer plus a few holidays. His father's way of life wasn't what he would choose, and his greatest advocate lived 1,400 miles away. I sacrificed a significant portion of one of my summers with him to give him the Interlochen experience.

Having spent a year or two as a percussionist in his junior high school band, he sent in his audition tape and applied for Intermediate Band. At that time in his life, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would reply–with a swagger–I'm gonna be a drummer in a rock band.

Shortly after his application was processed, he received a telephone call asking if he would consider being in the Intermediate Concert Orchestra and Intermediate Symphony Orchestra rather than the band (two ensembles instead of one). He graciously agreed.

He had been exposed to classical music at home before reaching Interlochen, but there was no love affair. Once he began daily rehearsals of classical music and began studying the scores, the love affair was fast and deep.

And now, 25 years later, after my son spent three years at Interlochen as a camper, several years as camp staff, and three years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, I am back at this magical place. I walk. I listen. I watch. I sit by the lake and feel the breezes and ponder the emotions roiling within me.

My son is now a computer professional. He studies search engine optimization with the same fervor he used to study Tchaikovsky. But he has not lost one gram of his love for Tchaikovsky, or Prokofiev, or Brahms, or any of their composer brothers.

And he has not lost his love for Interlochen.

Nor have I lost my love and gratitude for all that Interlochen gave him and, through him, me.

And so we pile ourselves, along with his two pre-teen children, in his car and trek to northern Michigan. We walk around, watch, and listen. And I cross my fingers that a bit of Interlochen love will rub off on my grandchildren.

Here's hoping I'll be back here next year, observing their classes and performances.

Note: Since this post was written in 2014, his two children have spent three summers at Interlochen Arts Camp; my son married his Academy sweetheart; and now they spend their summers together in Interlochen, where he works remotely at his web application development job and she works as a choreographer. And I've spent two summers as a collaborative pianist, one year in musical theatre, one year in dance. Life is good.

Who'll Stop the Rain?

Before I moved to Ohio, I had no idea how much it rains up here. (I say "up here," you understand, because I was born in Florida and have spent the bulk of my adult life in DC and Arizona.)

I love being in a house with open windows and gentle breezes flitting through. I loved living in Tucson, and hated that day each year (approximately May 15) when I knew the air-conditioner had to go on and would not be turned off until–probably–October.

I hated the Ohio winter of 2014. I grumbled, I complained, I added five pounds to my physique. But I lived through it.

One can always layer on more sweaters.

But this interminable wetness. Ugh!

Today I am envying all my friends and acquaintances who have central A/C. (We have two window units we bought last summer. But one has to leave the bedroom/family room at some point during the day. Window ain't Central!)

Everything I own is damp. My clothes. The sheets on my bed. All the furniture, hard or soft.

Even the basement–my hidey-hole to which I escape when it's too hot or too cold upstairs. The dehumidifier is running constantly and cannot keep up with all this moisture.

The upside? The high temperature today will only be 74°. Sure, the humidity is 92% and it's going to rain all day. (Oh, look. I'm writing this on the back porch and I just noticed it's raining now.) But it could be 99° and 99% humidity.

This ain't all bad.