The entire plane fell silent as the National Police boarded. The usual rustling and chatter and shifting of bags and staking of airline seat territory suddenly stopped. All around us people were sitting silently, facing forward, focusing on nothing in particular, maybe on a magazine or a book or the headrest of the seat in front of them.
The two young soldiers walked slowly up one side of the plane and then down the other, their long guns slung over their shoulders like the backpacks they’d have carried in a different life. They casually searched from row to row, looking left and right, up the starboard side, then down the port side. We heard them at the passenger door speaking with someone but the bulkhead wall prevented us from seeing who they were talking to.
The police turned around and started walking up the aisle again for a second pass through. Natalie and I had already cleared the extra seat between us that my parents had bought as a Christmas present. It was no longer a shared table, just another chair waiting for its passenger. We heard them approaching our section again. They were looking for a woman with two babies.
They were looking for me.
That is the first page of a memoir I’ve been working on for the past year. It’s the story about when I took my sons to meet their birth mothers in Paraguay, when they were sixteen years old.
Yesterday I finished the first draft.
Last year in October I was in a bad place. I called a friend of mine and asked for a zoom meeting. She’s a nice person, so she said sure. I sent her the link, she logged on, looked at me and said, “Holy shit.”
Well, I’m not sure she actually said that, but it was all over her face. And she’s normally a good poker player.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “My entire world just broke into a million pieces, and I think I need to write. Will you help me?”
I saw her person split in two. Half of her was Homer Simson backing into the bushes, but the other half leaned toward me.
“Yes, I will,” she said, “But I don’t know what exactly I should do.”
“Neither do I, but we can figure it out.”
And so I got my Emotional Support Editor.
In the year since many things have happened. I started writing. I started deleting. I started writing again.
I started sleeping again.
I started laughing again.
All sorts of other crap happened in that year, and lots of it was difficult. But with the help of my ESE I have written the story of one mother’s hope to find a family, to find peace for her sons, and to find a better understanding of what adoption means.
Being adopted is “lucky” the same way being saved from a burning house is lucky; it’s better than not being saved, but you were just trapped in an inferno. And you lost everything.
Adoption is the greatest injustice, and the greatest gift, all at the same time.
Adoption is a story about children and women.
Now I send this first draft out to readers. They will tell me where I’ve gone wrong, what is needed, what needs to be cut. Hopefully they’ll also tell me that there are parts worth keeping.
Then I start the rewrite, and then the long, likely impossible quest to find a publisher. Or I’ll publish it myself.
But dayum… the first draft is done!
It’s very weird to have something that’s lived primarily in my head be out there for actual eyes to see. And evaluate. But it’s a pretty big step on this new path, so I thought I’d share the news.
While I take a break from the book and wait for feedback, I’ll have to find a ways to keep myself out of trouble. Maybe finally write something that can get published in a magazine or journal.
It’s important to keep busy. Otherwise I’ll have to catch up on all that email. Nobody wants that.
I have yet to find an international adoptee to be a first draft reader, so if you are one, or know one who might be willing, please let me know!
Morning Teaistisms
My first post on tea was about peony tea, and it remains one of my favorites, because it remains subtle and buttery, gentle and yummy.
Gentle is a good way to start the new year, don’t you think?
Happy New Year to all of you!
So where is the rest of it? Not fair.
I can certainly understand your friend's reaction. What a breathtakingly compelling start to a book!