Winter Reality Post #3

Today is the first day of holidays.  I feel my annual celebratory self, absolutely. 

And I also feel the feeling that has tagged onto my jacket steadily for the last three and a half years, as well.  This is the frustrating wait feeling.  It is the hopeful feeling.  It is the reminder of the mystery of life feeling.  It is the it will work out in the end feeling.  It is the I'm grateful for what I have feeling. It is the rerun questioning of why it has to be so hard feeling.

And I know that all of my adoptive friends out there will resonate with this.  Using your blog to attempt to bear witness to the challenges of dreaming big and letting go all at the same time.  Because those two flip sides of this coin are rolling in the air, without ground.

And there are so many sweet reminders around the holidays: of family, traditions, friends, crackling fires, staying warm indoors...these sweet Western snapshots that deliver us home each Christmas.  But all of those sweet reminders also make the adoption wait an even bigger challenge...let the letting go, even that much harder.

So for all of those adoptive mamas and papas out there this Christmas, I get it, we get it here in our home as well.  And for our friends and family who support us with so much sensitivity and generosity, we thank you for standing by our sides.

and we'll carry on and wait until the next formal referral meeting in Lesotho:

February 15 on our calendar for 2013. 

Winter Traditions

Like petite little moulds we grow into

A marching band of one by one,

The bell tolls of family fun

We accept and play with and alter to fit

Traditions are the setup, the rehearsal , and

Our wrapped up bow tied shiny gift

Like a fine annual performance

The best of what we know

Meals cooked together, stories that grow

The most memorable of what we had

Not shined up glossed up magazine fads

Because those have been hucked out long ago

And what returns is the pulp,

The kicks the twists the banners that flow

And while the wait for our family to grow

Has been long and hard

We look toward our seasonal rest

And what we will build in our back yard

When little voices dance around our tree

And the lights that light up are sweet children

Asking freely

About winter traditions and what they will see…

Adoption Metronome

There are dark, soft time lashes that blink

Like little butterfly winks

As wings lift upward and fly away

Slowly disappear innocently

And

Blink

And there are sweeps of time

Erupting like land mines

Dream crimes

Little thieves that creep in and steal

Away steal away until little remains but a

Sweep

And there are gushes of time

Like raging rivers meeting and greeting

Two colours in a canyon of blending

Silt and clear raging into a milk of

Gush

But no matter what

Time time time

It continues on keeping

Rhythm Rhyme

To some unknown

Song

A metronome that sits beside me

Held tightly

By metaphor grinds

No matter what

Three Year Gaps

Three year gaps and maps in my life

Times of enormous change
Fine line growth rings, wings in my palm
Turn to soul songs, rising
Where distances are measured through pure years
And tearful exchanges that drip
Drip
Drip
And leaps of faith
That are coloured with strange
Coloured with strange

As I sit here and look back
Search words that somehow sketch
Fetch… perspective
On a reflection tainted by sepia minutes
Hit its
Hints

Like the first three
Choosing not to talk
Hardly growing hair
Holding on tightly with little to spare
A narrative framework
Personalized by tidbit memories that creep in
Fit skin to bone - jaw to chin
And the words rest on the tongue
And wait
Anticipate
For some, too long

Like the last three of formal school
Broken pencils and scrambled treble clefs
As Antigone soliloquies close locker doors
A child looks back at me in the mirror
For more…
Simulating questions about a future
A cadence of how and what and why
My only response - a fragmented poem
A fragmented poem
And an attempt at a good night’s sleep
To wake up and try it all again, just try it
And let the future triangulate the stars

And like the first three of engagement
Sweet succulent years of commitment
Like a chipped plate of plums for an English patient
Burned and fed and nursed into peace
Our wars were small but furious feasts
Standing tall over each other with brooding words
Just to tumble back down
And share a baguette and a sleep
Amble down to a used bookstore
With two divided reasons
But that walk was ours to keep

And like these three years past
This adoption dream forms its own hue
Nestles in and coats itself with uncertainty
Tries to trip up a longing heart
Fraught sketches of insecurity
Like magnification in charcoal
This dusty grip is the hard part
The dream, the seeming, the feelings…they come
Like tiny birds in the morning trees, they come
With regularity like the sun
But holding on with darkness in the grip
Is the hard part
A three year map is a long time
A long reedy line forming and floating
Through salt water tides

As always those wild weeds will subside
Where syncopated sibling birth marks
Shine
And this three year gap will pass, too
Into rhyme

Lesotho Heart Lands

Lowlands
fertile hearts, pump bursts of crimson
beginnings of hope beat
1-2-3 start
watching the water flow


Highlands
curiosity leaps, skies of robins-egg blue
length of the stretch, renewed
3-2-1
nearing the skies


Foothills
barefoot dreams, dust and Kelly greens
raw honesty
1-2-3 love
treading gently

little beats

Lesotho - 300 days of Sunshine

This is our first post as we announce our new adoption journey!  We are excited and nervous, but we will rage onward, gently and with our hearts wide open, again.  We welcome all of you to our next step in this adventure, filled with unknowns and possibilities! While we can't predict where this will take us, we can push forward and continue to build this life with one laugh, one dream, and one word at a time.