nudle

I'm seven.

I am at my coffee shop and I'm supposed to be paying bills and writing the next installment in my unpublished serial about the little girl and her brother but instead was just reading Poets & Writers and feeling both hatred and worship for Jonathan Lethem. Okay, I could never hate him; I'm a little in love with him and I am jealous of him and I want to be him, except I'd never want to lose my mother at fourteen like he did. Or give up my current family. So when given the opportunity to change lives with him I guess I'll say no. Writing this, I feel like I'm about Iona's age, because she sometimes talks about how she wants to be sisters with Anya or Siri, then sweet-naturedly backpedals, reassuring me that she would still want me as a mother. She would have two mothers.

While I'm in the seven-year-old frame of mind I better get my butt into a blank Word file and write the next installment, in which I try out the idea that the free-spirited boy that has just walked into their life is an inventor. Of sorts. With mean, loserish parents who smoke. (And if any of my friends who enjoy the occasional cigarette are reading this, I love you even though you smoke. Says seven-year-old me.)

But before I leave this blog and my twelve (more likely eleven) readers, I will confess that I am addicted to the Sopranos. I just finished season three in which a certain douchebag relative of Tony's is murdered. The comical part of my addiction is that I forgot to put season four in my Netflix queue and so instead of more delightful mobsterness I'm getting two movies I don't want, and I have to wait an extra couple days for my fix.*

* Originally I typed 'goomba fix' but not sure if that's an offensive term. If you have an opinion please clue me in.

Once in a while we need to slow down.

Han and I spent the morning together after school drop-off, reading, walking around, going out on the deck and back inside, out on the deck and back inside, out on the deck to look at the water and the boats and the hummingbird and the big, red truck. I got prone on the floor and he lay down on me (like I imagine he did with his foster mother). We had a snack, and I put him down for a nap. I've been cramming so much into every day that I have not made time to hang out with Han like I did with Iona when when she was a year (at least that's what I remember, spending more time with just her; I had left my career and was figuring out what was next).

I wish I had a machine that would put me in a slowed-down state, a more relaxed place, on command. I think it's not a machine, but meditation. I recently re-read this post by Danny Gregory about drawing as practice and meditation, and again I was inspired.

It's a beginning, or something anyway.

The two children walk along the dusty, gravelly shoulder, she pulling the old once-red Radio Flyer, he, smaller, riding its rusty confines. There hangs about them, in her pace and determined, downcast gaze and his quiet stillness, an air of sadness and loss, and they seem too young to be walking alone. Most busy adults driving past have this fleeting thought, those children should not be walking on this busy road without an adult, their discomfort gone fast, poor souls, must be poor, mom probably working her second job, must get home to my sick husband, my own child with that unreliable babysitter, must get the dog out before he goes on the carpet, need a gin and tonic, eleven hours of meetings today, can't deal with someone else's unfortunate, sullen children. Not one person stops to see to these two children. They all have their own families, worries, troubles, burdens, responsibilities and places to be.

The children have a goal, the thing they are trudging toward (or one of them is trudging toward, anyway) and that goal has the dubious moniker of Battle Berry Yumberry Black Currant. Neither child, not the blond, blue-eyed, leggy seven-year-old girl and not the small Asian boy with the star-shaped birthmark over his right eye has ever seen or eaten a black currant. But they have drunk plenty of clear-plastic-encased-bubble-topped frozen Battle Berry Yumberry Black Currants and had the attendant brain freezes, and the joyful release and physical relief following the intense pain -- all part of the sugary, red-staining experience of their shared addiction, Slurpees. And they move forward, her red sneakers now gray-pink with roadside dust, his little heart quickening at the thought of his only daily reward.

Illness, tears, transracial adoption and long, parenthetical avoidances.

I'm sitting in the local independent coffee shop and thoroughly enjoying my vacation from parenting while putting off writing. Oh, is this writing?

I've been thinking (and crying, the tears are always just below the surface these days) about illness and children lately. A young friend is in the hospital, and through him I've met another young man who is ill. Another friend, the mother of a girl we know with a chronic (but under control) illness just finished a book of poems about it and did a beautiful reading at the children's hospital (very proud of her) and I wept from the moment I sat down, the tears just streaming down my face, and I found that embarrassing but I was riveted by her poetry so I couldn't leave (though a huge, scared part of me wanted to escape). It is so completely unfair for children to be very ill, and I rail against it, and then I took Iona to an eye doctor to investigate this thing she's been saying for years (since she was three? four?): "Mom, things look small. Everything's smaller. You look really small, like tiny!" Then things go back to their normal size after a few minutes, and she never seems particularly upset by these episodes, and I only recently took it seriously (let that be a warning to you all out there with children seeing things small or large; go get them checked). This is the third time we've seen a doctor about it, though the first time it was just one of those chain optometry places in Chicago when she was four or five, and they had nothing to say except that her vision was fine.

Her pediatrician did routine neurological tests last winter and said she seemed perfect, and suggested we see an eye doctor, and so now I've finally gotten around to taking her. The diagnosis is micropsia, which is a change in visual perception that can be caused by early onset migraines, epilepsy, a brain tumor or extreme substance abuse and/or psychological problems. I choose migraines for Iona; thanks. But our next stop is the neurologist, where we will rule out the scarier stuff.

Meanwhile I have a babysitter and I've been watching a really well-done video here in the coffee shop as I avoid writing (this DVD is way overdue at the school library so I can justify my writing avoidance for the next few minutes at least). It's called Struggle for Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption and A Conversation 10 years Later, and within these interviews with adult adoptees there are all sorts of things pushing my buttons, so many I had to stop for a few minutes and write this (so I guess, again, I'm not really avoiding writing as much as I'm avoiding watching this thought-provoking, discomfiting video and avoiding writing what I should be writing which is, in my head, a story for children about a brother and sister whose mother has run out on them, leaving them with their largely absent father, and one of them is adopted, hmmm, and then I would like to illustrate it myself so I'm also avoiding my drawing practice which, any day, I will start, really, and I did actually sign up for a drawing class, thank you Sarah for your encouragement and I wish you the best of luck in LA! and this is the longest parenthetical passage I have ever written! and possibly with the most egregious punctuation too).

I would like to post all my thoughts about the video, but since it's all about carpe diem lately because I seldom come back and do what I mean to, I'll list what I've got so far, quickly:
- The young people (who then become older people in the 10 years later conversation) say you (as transracial adoptive parents) better be able to articulate why you're adopting transracially
- They talk about the importance of taking a strong, active, anti-racist stand, throughout the whole rest of your life
- They say that (and this is so right, I think) for many children the things that are important to parents are the things that become important to their children, so you can't just pay lip service to the racial customs of your child -- you have to truly value them, get behind them in attitude and deed

Cripes almighty. There's a lot rattling around in my head. My heart has been doing this nervous fluttery thing it does when I am suppressing stress, and shit I was supposed to go for an EKG today which means I will have to leave the coffee shop! I am sad to leave the coffee shop! I am not leaving until I have written some of this little story that's plaguing me, kicking from inside, bothering me every day, wanting to come out, about this mother who runs out on her children. Which I would never do. So there, heart. Flutter away.

Family 2.0

Family portrait by Iona. I like how Ewan is flexing his muscle.

I've been immersed in parenting, my mother and father-in-law visiting, the gradual process of getting to know Han, writing in my cheap notebook, badly-needed exercise, and now the first day of second grade.

In one moment about a month ago, sitting with Han in the rocker before nap, I became aware that bonding is the sensation of not knowing where your body ends and the other begins. I am getting there with Han, you know, the place where you don't think before you reach out and wipe your child's nose with your bare hand? Most fifteen minute increments are good. Some are magical. Others, I don't want to be that person. I try to breathe through those bad time periods, and they pass, and I look back twenty minutes later and I'm surprised they happened.

Everyone who meets Han wants to touch him, hold him, love him. That helps me love him during more of those fifteen minute increments, and I'm not sure I 100% like that fact, but I accept it.

We continue apace.

Getting better, though I constantly wish I could be more.

I realized how much help I need; I'm humbled and grateful.

Incrementally, I let go of the illusion of control.

I discovered that eco-friendly diapers can overflow a toilet.

Now it's five minutes later.

Han was dancing just now, actually standing and bouncing up and down and looking at me with devotion, and this goofy but brilliant classical rendition of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" was coming out of the speakers, and I felt it: Love. We humans truly are bizarre. And maybe we should call him Angus after all.

It's going to be great!

Han is a really nice kid. We're lucky. He slept through the night last night and took an almost-two-hour nap today. As long as we feed him enough, he has a sunny personality and is active and curious. Instead of a laugh when he's amused he makes this sound like a pterodactyl, a breathing-in creaky croak, and we all laugh, and he grins and does it again. He's cautious with the attempted walking (it won't be long), a little cautious with Kitty, and he drools, and he thinks touching the (plugged) outlets is a fun game. I say no and get increasingly stern, and he smiles, bows his head, and goes for it over and over until I remove him. I need to memorize Korean "no," a word with which I'm sure he's familiar. We have a small booklet titled, "Basic Vocabulary for Adoptive Family" that the Korean agency gave us. No, when addressed to a child, is ah-ni-da. Bowel movement is ddong. How do you pronounce that?

So things are going really well, but I'm not yet in love. You know when you're dating and at first you think you're in love, because the person is particularly attentive or adorable or performs well on stage, and then on the tenth date you notice that they like to scratch their head with their fork or have a habit of ending sentences in prepositions, and you feel that sinking feeling, like maybe this isn't a good match after all, and you see the ugly breakup in your future, and the disappointment and heartbreak and going back to dating, and then in the end you marry them and the fork-scratching thing just seems cute? Han and I are on that date, and it happened fast, and what I mean by that really bad comparison (because there is nothing he does like misusing prepositions; all he does is need me and occasionally make the mistake of pulling a table over on himself and cry, and then I think at him, you should know better, geez, and then I feel bad for thinking that) is that I know I will fall in love eventually.

So, though I know it's a matter of time, the currently-not-in-love thing makes me feel panicky when coupled with the I-have-no-time-of-my-own-any-more thoughts, that precious time I once had, and frittered away! I frittered it! And I can't finish anything, but that was always the case anyway.

I expected this. Deep breaths. It will be fine, I know.

Last night, as I watched him roll around in his sleep in the Pack 'n Play we have set up in our bedroom because we can't agree on which baby monitor to buy (Ewan wants a video monitor and I don't want to spend the money) I was attacked by tenderness for this tiny, motherless boy, and I wondered if he senses he's not yet the center of anyone's world. Don't we all crave being the center of someone's world, of their heart? I know I do. I felt sad (and more than a touch guilty) that I can't completely share my center with him yet. But like I told a tearful Iona at violin camp a few weeks ago, fake it until you can make it, and I'm taking my own advice.

In the meantime, I emailed a friend who babysits for Iona to see if she is available during the day. I know, it's too early and I need to bond with him, but once a week, for a half day or maybe six hours? That's okay, right? I'll consult some books, and he's off to the pediatrician tomorrow so I'll consult her as well.

Getting used to each other.

Of course, I have to do everything more quickly now, and can do only half as much.

Han is teaching us to care for him. Some lessons:

1. Hold me all the time, preferably standing (walking is best)
2. I only like the ugly baby carrier so don't even think about looking hip
3. I will only sleep if I am lying on you
4. The less sleep you have the easier it is for me to practice mind control
5. Make sure I have a full belly, but please know it is bottomless
6. I might reward you with a smile and a laugh if you demonstrate full understanding of the above

Above: the exception.

Four people in three coach seats for eleven hours.

He likes dad best.

Likes to eat.

Below: Seoul adventures...

Goodbye to hotel, featuring Iona in hanbok:

Leaving Seoul today.

I wrote a long set of memories of this trip, which I would describe as wonderful, magical, and Ewan describes as, "an odd, surreal, an out-of-body experience," and Iona describes as, "an exciting trip." I then lost the long Word file containing all the memories. There is a lesson in there about letting go, or about having a lack of hubris. Or saving early and often.

Just a few, quickly, before we find lunch in the rain and then go to pick up Han:

Counting twenty-five tiny, dark-haired, healthy newborn babies in the agency nursery, and then in another room, ten tiny ill babies. "We always have a shortage of foster families," Ms Shin told us.

Iona saying at the Noryangjin, the fish market, after a flopping fish splashed her, "At least the octopus had manners!"

Beautiful young women in impossibly high heels and tiny short skirts tripping lightly over the uneven brick streets.

Splurging on an expensive Buddhist meal, and then liking the cheap peasant meal better.

Upon first arriving, exhausted in the car from airport, talking with a young man who was adopted into an American family and was spending four weeks studying Korean here in Seoul, and me thinking the whole time, he would be nice to have as a son.

A man coming up to us in the subway, bending over and telling Iona she was a beautiful little girl; she, obviously uncomfortable, walking away, and then he helping us the next day with the subway ticket machine, and telling her, laughing and laughing, that she was a beautiful little girl.

At Lotte World, sitting down in the car of the French Revolution and, just after the "cast member" locked the padded harness into place, panicking. Panicking! Saying, "Ewan! I have to get out of here. Wave someone down! I have to get out!" Then this indoor roller coaster taking off and banging our heads side to side. Thus the sign at the entrance: "To avoid injury, please remove earrings before running."

Getting in the elevator this morning, full of anxiety over the imminent sadness when we have to take Han from his foster parents who so obviously love him, and hearing "Summertime," my favorite song, playing as elevator music, and taking that as a sign. Then, later, taking the thunderstorms outside our hotel room window as a sign.