Transracial | this woman's work

Maybe it's the humidity

Grad School, The Story of My Life 12 Responses »

Aug 112009

I can’t shake the cotton wool clouding up my brain and so seems like every thing work-related is taking longer. I think I’ve developed allergies as an adult because I keep getting a sore throat these days and sometimes when I’m running I start to wheeze and sometimes I don’t and all I can think is that it’s allergies. That would explain some of this cotton wool, too.

Bullet-style ‘cuz I’m tired:

I had the best visit with Thorn and Lee this Sunday. Great conversation, lots of laughing and I learned some, too. Stellar!
Also was happy to finally get ourselves to another IFIF meeting and yes, we will be making it a regular thing. It’s odd because in lots and lots of ways the only thing we all have in common is kids of African-descent (usually by adoption but all sorts of kinds of adoption). There are people I feel like I click with and people who I feel like I probably never will and Madison was more interested in swimming with Brett than in playing with the other kids but we’re going to keep going. I think Madison needs black kids in her life who are being raised by black parents but I also think she needs other black kids being raised by white parents. I am fortunate that we live in an area with a well developed, strong support group so that she won’t feel like the only transracially adopted black kid.
On the way home I was saying to Brett that a couple of other parents said that their black kids never expressed any concern about being the only black kid in the family (these were both families where there are white siblings) and Madison — despite sitting in the way back of the van with the windows down and the radio on and despite not being able to hear me say, “Please clear your place” while sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME at the table — heard me and hollered towards the front, “Well, it’s OK for me to feel that way because it’s just true.” She told Thorn and Lee that, too.
On the GRE front, I’m consistently acing the quantitative test (you know, vocab) but just hitting the minimum score I need for the math. Yikes. I’m studying slowly but surely and finally realized I need to quit trying to understand the math and just learn it. Honestly, I’m never going to use it again once I take the test (because I haven’t used it yet since I forgot it all in middle school or high school or whenever you learn this stuff) so why bother to really try to get it? Since deciding this it’s all gotten a little bit easier. There are a lot of study tricks when you’re not trying to actually learn something.
I have more to say but I’m too hot and/or tired to manage it. Pennie just called and I could barely form complete sentences. Time for a cold bath, I think!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Adoption 2 Responses »

Feb 242009

Madison’s maternal birth family — both sides — were long-time residents of New Orleans. Her grandfather’s family moved away a decade or so ago but her grandmother’s family didn’t go until Katrina swept them out of their homes. (Most of them are in Houston now.)

Pennie didn’t grow up in New Orleans although she lived there for a few months while she was pregnant and she did inherit some killer recipes. When she goes to visit her family she comes back with fresh idioms that make me laugh and a new appreciation for the things that make her family unique. (She has an aunt named Peaches, for crying out loud! I love that!) Also? Pennie’s Grandfather was one of the Mardi Gras Indians (read more about their history here — it’s really interesting).

Whenever I think about Pennie and New Orleans, I think about how she is a master at code switching. She grew up in suburban Tacoma listening to Journey but her people have deep roots in the 9th Ward District. And then I think about her transracially adopted daughter here in our family and how her experiences influenced that decision (to place her brown-skinned daughter with white parents). I know that this decision wasn’t popular with her extended family down South although my (brief brief brief) experiences with them have been nothing but fine. I think about that, too.

I hope we can get Madison down there sometime — Pennie and I keep talking about it. But money is never in the right place at the right time. Madison might not get to meet them until we’re all dancing at Pennie’s wedding. I don’t really expect her to have a strong relationship with them because it is a big, busy family and we live far away. But I want Madison to feel some sense of access to them enough that if she was in town, she could pick up the phone and find someone to invite her over for dinner. I know they miss her and they love her but there are just so many obstacles.

(When Pennie first visited after Madison’s placement, she found that her god father had framed pictures of her and Madison and hung them up and down his hall. This gives me hope.)

Mardi Gras is just one of those times that I find myself thinking a little bit more about adoption than I usually do.

(This post brought to you by rumination!)