without a Sun

I lost my Sun.

The center of my Soul-ar system.

You call it birth, I call it supernova. Bright lights, pain, explosive emotions.

And when it was all said and done, only blackness at my core.

Everything a mother's life revolves around, now gone.

No centrifugal force to keep my shit together,

inevitably everything fell apart, before crushing back in on the dense darkness.

Some say the Sun didn't disappear, but was transported through a wormhole to a different corner of the Universe, part of a new solar system. Some days I can barely feel its warmth radiating from so far away, but I cannot see its Light. It must be so far away that it will take years until I see it again.

So, my Son, how many light-years are you away from me?

I don't know what you look like.

Little Man,

I've been strong about this.

Even last night at my adoption-awareness support group, I showed them the thank you card that finally came in the mail for the birthday presents.

But I didn't want her handwriting. When I pick up an envelope out of my mailbox from Littleton, CO, there's only one thing I want to be in it: a photo.

One little photo of your face.

Is that too much to ask for?

I haven't gotten a new photo since Christmas, and then it was just a mass-mailed family shot posed in some department store studio. Your face was about one square centimeter, but it meant the world to me. I could see it changing, which isn't hard to notice when I only get one. That is, when I get one.

Augh, am I being petty? Should I be eternally grateful? 

I have no idea. I never have.

Today I found myself wandering a store trying so desperately to efficiently choose a birthday gift for my son, who turns 4 on Saturday. It has been six months since I've heard from his adopting parents and two years since I've seen him. It's hard enough to look at toys without fighting back daydreams of my son playing with them, but there I was, erratically picking up toy after toy, this time trying to see him play with it. Would he love it? Would he even like it? Rather, would he like it for more than twenty minutes? I pick up two tool sets based on a past photo I've seen of him playing in a construction hard hat, pretending to use a screwdriver. It's the one that warms my heart so much because his birthfather and I were home renovation contractors when we got pregnant... he was pretending to be like his father and he didn't even know it. Then I abruptly threw the two play tool sets back onto the shelf because I feared that his adoptive parents may read into it and think I'm encouraging him to be more like us, and walked away. I find more cool, boyish toys and pick them up only to turn them over and think maybe they're too advanced for his age, and then again he is advanced for his age. But that thought only spirals me down memory lane to the last day I saw him, just after his second birthday, when he wowed me with his ability to speak in full sentences already, and then my eyes filled with tears and I'd snap back to the present moment where I was trying not to lose it in front of the store clerk grudgingly restocking the shelves. I try to sniffle silently, and blink away the warm saline clouding my vision of the innumerable choices stacked along the aisle, and pick up the first toy I touched just to seem like I had a clue as to what I was doing in that store.

My stomach growled so I decided to take a break and walk over to the candy aisle to peruse the chocolate, hoping its natural concoction of endorphins would alleviate some of my emotion. It wasn't even a minute later when I was disgusted by the amount of toxic, neon-colored junk they call "candy" and sulked back over to the matchbox cars and puzzles, glancing one more time at the cute play tool belt before realizing, even if his parents didn't read into it like I feared, I was making the decision based on a year-old photo of him. What if he's grown out of "fixing" and "building" things? Was it just a phase that has already passed? How many other phases or interests has he developed and lost? I have no idea what he likes to do: I never have. So how am I supposed to shop for his special day when I'm clueless as to what's special to him? I emigrate from the toys to the children's books, and settle on two. Again, deciding on a Mickey Mouse adventure book based on a photo they sent last summer of Ryder absolutely ecstatic about getting Mickey's autograph at Disney World.

These little pieces of evidence of his life are more than precious to me, but still entirely impossible to survive on. Our "open" adoption was meant to be more than the occasional photo: it was promised to be inclusive, and I am far from "included" in his life. So as I wrap up and ambiguously label his gifts "From: Anne," my heart breaks that I cannot tell him these books are from his Mama and that I would do anything to be able to give them directly to him. One more birthday comes and goes and I know less and less about my son: less about what he loves, about what he wants, or does, or feels. If I had to decipher his life based on the photographed evidence that is rarely bestowed on my inbox, I would deduce that my son is never fed, read to, or even held; and I know that's not true. It would just be nice to see it.

maternal instincts

I can kid myself that I'm not as maternal as I used to be.

Or that I'm not as stricken with the maternal urges as I used to be.

Really, I just think I've become better at controlling them, but they're still there.

When my housemates' infant (I live cooperatively now with a family with children) cries, I no longer crave to take him from the rocker and sing lullabies to him. I do, however, have intense heartaching urges when they ignore him. One day I couldn't stand to wait longer than 60 seconds of his waking cries--that had become desperate screams--before I retrieved him from their bedroom because they were "busy" outside in the gardens. I had him quieted down to whimpers by the time they came inside the open door and mumbled something like, "Oh, thanks, we couldn't hear him." Their 30 month old I also feel compelled to care for, especially since her little brother was born and they have started to neglect her development. She, at a critical time of toddlerhood, has become a whiney shadow in their distracted midst. There are days when I feel ripped at my seams because there's only so much I can do with/for her. I read an average of a book per day with her (this morning I read three). I find myself compulsively reinforcing her tremendous speech development or intervening in her behavior (second nature to me as I'm a behavioral therapist) and even interpose when she wanders out the open front door and down the sidewalk when her father falls asleep on the couch. Although she does get to tag along to a ton of educational public events with her parents, at home she is encouraged to be completely independent, even when the parents are available.

Impressive, right? No, she's only two--this is the time to be constantly interacting: independence (that which doesn't develop naturally during the "terrible twos") should be encouraged later. I can only imagine how loquacious she'd be if they actually talked to her around the dinner table. They obviously did great with her, because she's brilliant and so very advanced for 30 months, but she's starting to tantrum because they ignore her unless she's repeatedly whining or screaming requests.

I digress.

I guess my point is [at the risk of sounding full of myself]

I think I'd be a great mother.

I even think I would have been a great mother at 21.

Why did my own amazing mother, then, think I wouldn't have been?

She never said I wouldn't have been a good mother, she implied I couldn't have been.

She explicitly expressed that she felt she would have been obligated to raise the child.

Not be a grandmother to my son, but "to be a mother again."

She has no idea how much it hurt me to say that.

And I can't bring myself to tell her.

alone on Valentine's

Alone.

A lone woman in this bed tonight.

It used to make me cry: to not feel him next to me.

I couldn't sleep without his wall of warm muscles

prostrated to my right.

I returned to him night after night,

even after he kicked me to the curb.

Knowing there was nothing I could do,

I returned anyway just to feel him

there in those last few moments as we drifted off.

When I woke up, he was gone.

And in my awakening, I realized he was never there.

I couldn't fill the void in my heart with him.

Nor was I a strong enough vessel to contain his love.

He began to fill me, and I cracked.

He poured into me, and I broke.

Now empty.

Hardening in the Sun of the Eternal Love.

Curing.

Healing.

I have found solidarity in solitude.

Tonight I lay wrapped in blankets of grace, trust, independence.

This bed is barely big enough to hold my new extensive heart.

No valley among mountainous pillows could hold this radiating chakra,

this bursting dan tien.

The chasms in my life are filled with overflowing waters,

sacred uncoiling kundalini,

pulsing qi force giving life back to my

sole soul.

So this is what happiness is.

With a fadeless smile under these sleepy eyes,

I drift off with no one next to me and EVERY ONE of you within me.

Happy Valentine's Day,

Open up, Let's all fall in Love with one another.

so call me paranoid

Ryder,

The closer we get to the holidays, the more likely I am to start an email to your parents, wording gently that I will be in Virginia over Christmas and would like to see you all. And then I get nervous and delete the email. Today I deleted it and then re-wrote it, only to delete it again.

The sooner I tell them I'll be in town, the longer they'll have to make excuses to not see me. I know this is ridiculous. I know it is. So call me paranoid. But I will do anything to make it more likely to be able to see you, and try not to do anything that makes it less likely to see you. Could I send them a random card in the mail? Should I reach out to your grandparents?

I found myself telling someone a couple weeks ago, "I don't know if I could survive another year without seeing him." Wow, what an admission. I'm stronger than that, aren't I? I mean, physically survive, sure, but sadly. Meakly. I want so badly to see your smile, to hear your laughter. More admittedly, I want you to see me. Maybe if you see me just once a year, you're less likely to forget me.

                                                             "...less likely to forget me..." 

I guess... yeah, that is one of my greatest fears.

I need to sit with that. Be present to it.

I'm in public, but the tears still well up.

Mama Anne

To Ryder, from the frozen forest floor of Flagstaff

My Little Man, Ryder,

As I lay flat in a tent trying to muster inner warmth so I can fall asleep among the Ponderosa Pines in Flagstaff, AZ, I think of you. I feel slightly closer to you. I am. Not only do I have that many less worldly worries (about dating, or grades, or paychecks) because I'm mostly consumed by thoughts of "Will I survive the night?" but I am also physically closer to you. I am about one-third of the way from San Diego to Denver, and a few minutes ago I honestly considered packing up all the camping equipment, getting in my car, and flooring it to Colorado.

I know, it was so unlikely, and irresponsible to even consider it. But I wanted it. I pondered, "Could I afford the gas? Could I drive that far without falling asleep?" The first two answers were a resounding yes. I would afford it, and lord knows I would be so excited about seeing you, I would stay awake until I got to Denver. But then what? Your 'Mom' and 'Dad' would probably shit a brick if I showed up on their porch. They would probably not even let me spend the day with you without supervision. And what about you? You're a brilliant 3-and-a-half right now. You would have questions--questions that would need to be answered-- about this strange woman who loves you so much; questions that you didn't have 17 months ago, when I last held you in my arms. And your 'big sister'? She would know. Has she been told otherwise? Does she know she's not allowed to talk to you about your other mom? That she's not to mention me? What do they tell her? These questions--questions that need to be answered--buzz around in my head as I lay frozen, pulling the sweater and mummy bag tighter around my face. I feel like I can't breathe. I open the mummy bag a little more, even though the cold air is shocking to my sinuses, throat and lungs. But it's not the mummy bag that is restricting my oxygen. I'm at 6900 feet elevation! God, it's cold. I think about how warm the heater in the car would be, driving through the night to see you. I think about how warm my heart would be, how fast my heart would beat, to have you back in my arms. And yet, writing this is the first time I have not cried when admitting these things in writing. The tears may be hesitant to fall, for perhaps they would freeze half-way down my cheek. Perhaps I'm healing. Perhaps your 'Dad' and 'Mom' would see that, and trust me more. I have to know... how far am I from where you sleep tonight?? I type your address into my map application on my cell phone: 686.1 miles. It would take me 11 hours and 53 minutes. Simple math tells me that's about 20 gallons of fuel. I just filled up. If I drove quickly, could be at your door by the time your 'big Sis' leaves for school.

But what about my responsibilities? School on Monday, and the friend who's counting on me for a ride back to San Diego on Sunday. I couldn't possibly drive all the way to Denver for just one day. I'd want to stay with you for... haha, that's a silly thought. There's no time limit I can put on that. I'd want to stay with you for... days? a week? Of course not. I'd want to stay. (Period.) I honestly would leave everything behind temporarily to just stay. I'd find a job in Denver, if I believed your 'parents' would open their hearts enough to let me really be a part of your life. I know it will be confusing for you to hear that I'm your Mama Anne (again), but I'd stick by you while you cried, and wait for you to overcome the confusion and fear; and be ready to love you and take care of you as much as they'd allow... but I think your 'Mom' would see one furrow of your brow and whisk you away from me if you showed the slightest fear or confusion as to having "two mothers."

The excuses that float to the tip of my fingers aren't because I don't want to go to Colorado; they are because I don't want to lose you again. I have to stay patient. I have to stay away. To give these precious years of your new life to them, and not be selfish and butt in.

But still, as a lay frozen against the solid ground in the middle of nowhere, Arizona, I fall asleep holding onto the warm thoughts that I'm that much closer to you.