Last week or maybe yesterday, my writing teacher, Anne, asked for a paragraph on what it is like to write personal essays while quarantined at home. Four pages and a glass of iced Effen blood orange vodka later, this is what I sent her. Noting after the fact the "a paragraph" stipulation. She graciously accepted... Continue Reading →
In pre-dawn stillThe wind comes once everyThree minutes, bellowing deep in the treesSlow, picks up speed, then stops. dark ghost trainwinds down, swapping arrivers fordepartersWhose gossamer trench coating shuffle wetLeaves adhere, our front window stained Chapel glass between worlds. Warm and dry,tamed storming, unpredictable rowdyTimetables of bluster and agenda, measures of syncopated nature, theruthless spiced... Continue Reading →
In the 1901 Directory of Social and Health Agencies of New York [State]..., Volumes 11-13; Volumes 16-19, in chapters titled Cheap Meals, Lodgings, and Baths and Reformatories for Women, you will find a listing for the place my first-mother stayed while pregnant with me. Despite decades between the first mention of this "Home" for unwed... Continue Reading →
A young male and a young female have sex. Years ago, a medium said my conception "feels like it was very...abrupt. And aggressive." I have no idea what happened only that the Female became pregnant. Male has no interest in 1) any relationship with the female past the one (was it more than one?) night... Continue Reading →
Raising a child while neglecting to actually Mother said child: Unmothering. Growing up, the moments of my adoptive mother acting like a Mother were scant. Mother and Mommy are similar but different; truthfully, I'm not recalling anything outstanding for the Mommy category, either. There were moments she acted like a Mother. Dependable, positive, pleasant and... Continue Reading →
New Dorp, Staten Island. 1986. My first apartment, the entire second floor of a small two-family house. Bedroom with alcove closet, full bath, large kitchen/dining area, sunny living room with small private terrace overlooking the neighborhood. At $450 a month, it was a gem. I felt safe if a tad remote. The commute was cool: Walk... Continue Reading →
These are the things she told me from a very early age. They are, in no particular order, the foundations of how, when and why I arrived. (You'll note I was never born in any of these well-meaning bon mots.) Whether true at the time they were shared matters not; it's what was told to... Continue Reading →
The last couple weeks, on the way to and from work, I've been soaking up a lot of Adoptees On podcasts; and, while I am a writer, the one topic I have neatly avoided is my adoption/search/reunion and that I decided reunion wasn't what I thought. Or, rather, I wasn't sure what reunion was supposed... Continue Reading →
Gimme... Yeah,...I want... Umgonnahaf... Lemmeget... . Tell you what I want. Are ya' listenin'?? Not a single please nor thank you. Not. One. And her daughter-in-puffy-jacket walked directly in front of me several times while carting coffee mugs to and fro, deciding a teacher gift. Not once did that 11- or 13-year-old child make eye... Continue Reading →
