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