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The first adoptee blogger here, Jupe, coined an apt phrase she used to describe the frequency adoption-related bits and pieces of ephemera would drift into her realm, then stick for a while: adoption velcro.
All of us experience this to some degree … well, all of us who deposit time and energy into the awareness bank and keep our vigilance accounts topped up. I can, however, still be surprised by how often adoption comes at me from what would appear to be the clear blue sky, although I wonder if someone less attuned would attach the same significance or latch on to the specific thread as strongly as I do, not only as an adoptive parent, but also as an advocate who writes daily on many different aspects of adoption.
Because my kids don’t look like me, and because I live on a small island where everyone knows something about everyone else, any venture out of the house that brings us in contact with the general public is likely to bring up the subject. Many just want to let me know that they know, while others have specific questions. If I can, I pass along as much education on the topic as possible. Some have their own stories, and I am always surprised by the information total strangers choose to share simply because they know a little something about my family and see me as a safe and like-minded confidant.
Adoption is so in the public eye and mind these days. Harry Potter is hardly the first orphan to make it big on the big screen, and with real-life adoption so much an issue in the mass media there is no shortage of opinion on the process, pro/con, informed/manipulated, and so on.
Because my work is so focused on adoption and adoption-related issues, I must dedicate much time and effort to research, some of which involves wading neck deep in the dregs of muckraking and other unsavory and agenda-ladened blather to separate the wheat from the chaff. Getting away from it all from time to time is a must, but doing that is not as easy as it sounds.
Reading is my best escape, as within the pages of a good book is the only place I can truly lose my reality for a while. Since there are no bookstores in Seychelles to speak of, my purchases are online and my recommendations come from any direction I can find. My tastes are wide and varied, and I usually have two books going at the same time, so l like it when they’re very different from each other.
As an example of all this I’ve been going on about for six paragraphs so far, I recently found my self reading “The Meaning of Night” as my upstairs book, and picking up “Run”, by Ann Patchett as my downstairs book.
“The Meaning of Night”, a 19th Century mystery by Michael Cox, is a dark and brooding tangle of well-written entertainment that had me completely within its grip, when all of a sudden … Boom! … it turns out to have adoption at its heart. A strange and convoluted version of adoption, for sure, but the meat of the story ends up hinging on that doorway.
Moving downstairs in hopes of getting away from it all, adoption-wise, I pick up “Run” and get no further than PAGE TWO before adoption once more hits me upside the head like that sack full of nickels I’m far too familiar with, with the introduction of two of the main characters, both transracial adoptees in the middle of the family the book is about.
I wonder if there’s a way to search Amazon.com that allows parameters like: has nothing whatsoever to do with adoption in any way, shape or form. Perhaps that would limit the selection so drastically that the remaining picks would be all be tomes on carburetors, carbuncles or carrots.
I’m thinking now that adoption velcro is no longer limited to those of us whose with strong attachments, but that everyone, everywhere has been touched and we all want to talk, write, read and hear about it.
True to the new adage that gray is the new blonde, I have to admit here to having “a moment”. In looking back through some blogs for a link I need for another post, I came across this from WAY BACK in September where I wrote about Ann Patchett’s book, “Run”. That must have been when I ordered it, then, apparently, forgot all about it. So completely was it gone from my mind that the adoption theme surprised me.
Gee! It’s fun to be gray/blonde! Every day is a new day and every thought is original.
It all gets to be a bit much after a while, doesn’t it? All the questions, curiosity, political correctness and, of course, the spew that comes from certain quarters. We all need a break now and then. I can totally relate to that, my friend