What a crazy month, it just flew by!

I should be sleeping. Or I could be watching a new ER (I have purposely not watched any of "my shows" this season, I am hoping to catch them on DVD). I had a rough day and I am now trying to relax by sitting here for a few minutes and tapping away. This I should say, annoys my husband greatly. Occasionally he will startle out of sleep saying with aggravation, "are you still awake?" but then falls back to sleep. He swears he's doing this in his sleep and doesn't remember in the a.m.

I have read many interesting things tonight. I checked in on the Randi Rhodes web site. I love her, even when she yells at people on the show. I don't think she does it to be mean, she just becomes exasperated.

http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/

When Fred first purchased the XM radio for me, I thought it was way too over the top a gift, too indulgent. We are going to pay for radio?! But I have become a die hard Air America fan. I enjoy the young Turk's in the morning too. Having to drive 35 minutes each way gives me time. Although when Kiana is not in the mood we listen to an agreeable choice.

I checked out Rosie O'Donnel's blog and page which I found so interesting. An outspoken liberal, so true to my heart :) I think she should visit Randi's show. That would be so great.

http://shop.rosie.com/rosie/Shop

There were a few comments on her blog that were so negative and anger invoking. I don't understand why people find the need to be quite so hateful to one another. Is there ever any reason? To come down on some one else's spiritual beliefs because they do not equate to yours? It so puzzles me. I do not think I could handle celebrity.

Speaking of which, I came home late last night after Kiana's class night and I actually watched part of an NBC show where Merideth Vierra interviewed Madonna about her recent work and adoption from Malawi. I'm not a big fan of Mrs. Vierra as I found her interrupting to be annoying. But I so enjoyed Madonna's forthrightness and plain honesty. It was refreshing. I think if Madonna adopting from a part of Africa which has so many rules against adopting- can bring attention to that area than great! Look what it has done in the world of international adoption to have had Angelina Jolie adopt from Ethiopia! A referral there used to be only three months, and now its 8-12 months wait. Many more children are finding their way into forever homes. It is sad how so many of the tribal oriented governmental systems in Africa prevent foreign adoption when AIDS is ravaging their parents. People do not believe me when I explain, how when a young child (under 3 perhaps?) becomes available for adoption through the foster care system, you have dozens of potential families to choose from. So many families that just want to raise a baby, they do not care about the race of the child. And its just so hard. The waiting..... I wonder if international adoption were not so unattainable for a middle class family, so, so expensive - how many children's lives would be saved. Or if we had a foster care system that actually functioned sanely and was properly funded and staffed. Where birth mothers don't have a new case opened on their eighth child to be removed. I don't know, I certainly don't have the answers, but I have so many questions.

I am a bit scared of blogging. Its a strange sort of means of communication. An online journal of sorts. Hopefully I will not dissuade you from wanting to be involved.

That is a scary thing for me, getting involved. Seeing the bigger picture of the world without it being intimidating. I just want to be a mom right now, I wish I could do that.

"Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own good."

--Pablo Casals

"Anything that you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions. We are not free."

--Peace Pilgrim

"The cultivation of generosity is the beginning of spiritual awakening. Generosity has tremendous force because it arises from an inner quality of letting go. Being able to let go, to give up, to renounce, and to give generously all spring from the same source, and when we practice generosity ... we open up these qualities within ourselves."
--Sharon Salzberg

"Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net, or the swimmer in the next lane, or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump. Your opponent is yourself, your negative internal voices, your level of determination."
--Grace Lichtenstein

"The edges of things are always deceptive.because we are taught to believe in endings and beginnings.but the truth is:There Are No Borders."
--Pavithra Mehta

Glimpses of this summer

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

--Alan Cohen

Snippits from Mary J Blige's song "Everything"

It's all because of you

I'm never sad and blue

You've brightened up my day

In your own special way

Whenever you're around

I'm never feeling down

You take me away

From the pain

And you bring me paradise

And when there are cloudy days

you brought sunshine in my life

It never occurred

To me the first time I saw your face

I would fall so deep in love

That your love can't be replaced

chorus:You are my everything (you are my everything)

You are my everything

and everything is you............

Lenea, Lenea...............

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet, knowing how way leads onto way

I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood

And I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

From NPR, a response from writer Melissa Fay Greene

There has been quite a bit of controvercy over Madonna's adoption of a boy from Malawi. It puzzles me why no one had this reaction every time Mia Farrow adopts a child. Never the less I thought this excerpt was worth reading................


Adopting a Baby from Africa, Famous or Not
by Melissa Fay Greene

All Things Considered, October 20, 2006 · Madonna's adoption of a little boy from the African nation of Malawi last week has enraged celebrity-watchers and commentators.
They've accused her of child trafficking, chattel slavery, and bribing government officials.
Most seem to find it impossible to picture this boy in her family. Opponents suspect Madonna has ulterior motives, rather than adoption's usual impetus, which is, simply motherhood.
If the backlash arises mostly from the public's distaste for Madonna's career, then I plead ignorance. I've never seen her perform nor bought one of her albums.
But I know about adoption from Africa.
My husband and I have four children by birth and three by adoption. Two of our children were orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia and lived in orphanages before joining our family. Helen arrived at age 5, five years ago; Fisseha came at age 10, two years ago. Later this fall, a pair of brothers, Yosef and Daniel, currently living in an overcrowded foster home in Addis Ababa, will join our family.
"Aren't their transitions terribly difficult?" people ask us, just as onlookers have predicted that Madonna's African baby will find the transition to an affluent life too difficult.
My children's transitions took about, oh, three hours.
By the end of 5-year-old Helen's second week in America, I started finding new "favorite places" saved on my computer. Alongside the usual news sites and journalism blogs, I suddenly had Barbie.com, barbieclothes.com and americangirldolls.com.
She quickly let us know, however, that all was not perfect: She was not pleased to be sharing a bedroom with 6-year-old Jesse because he was leaving Spiderman action figures all over the floor. Helen made several efforts to evict him by gathering up all his things and placing them in a neat pile outside the door.
Helen had lived with her widowed mother in a mud hovel in Addis Ababa; she had been her beloved mother's chief caregiver in the last year of her life; but somehow sharing a bedroom with her brother was not how she'd envisioned her new life in America.
Finally one day, completely fed up, Helen demanded to know: "If I was not going to have my own bedroom, why did you adopt me?"
Fisseha, after losing his parents early in childhood, worked as a goatherd on the great plains of Ethiopia and was brought to an orphanage by a kind elderly woman when he was 9.
On one of his first nights in America, our older sons and their friends were watching the NBA playoffs on TV. There were Playstation controls lying about on the floor. Curiously, the 10-year-old picked up a control, eager to play, but the teenagers were not going to miss the basketball game. So they led him to believe he was controlling the game.
Every time Shaquille O'Neill made a basket, the big boys pounded Fisseha on the back and yelled their approval, so he wildly pushed the buttons and the game went on. After the game, when Shaq hugged his coach, the big kids told Fisseha he had pushed the button for "hug."
Fisseha goes into the woods, strips bark off the trees, and weaves twine from it, from which he creates bullwhips and slings. He carves little animals and toys from wood. He strips a branch and sharpens it into a spear, with which he can pierce a flying Frisbee and nail it to a tree.
"Mom, look!" he shouted in his deep voice one day, to show me the sling he had woven. He placed a small pebble in it, swung it over his head, released the pebble, and the stone flew like a bullet through our Plexiglas basketball backboard, which shattered.
"Mom! Sorry!"
"Could you go deeper into the woods?" I cried. "Jeez, you could kill somebody with that thing."
One day he ran into the house for a kitchen knife, led Jesse into the woods, and cut and peeled two branches for fishing rods. Back in the house, he asked for thread, then bent straight-pins into fishhooks.
I watched the boys, ages 11 and 10, hike up the sidewalk of our midtown Atlanta neighborhood with fishing rods over their shoulders and apples in their pockets. My thought at that moment: "We've adopted Huckleberry Finn."
At night, this manly boy, who knows how to forage and to fish and to herd goats, who can walk or run 10 miles effortlessly, who is all muscle and sinew, comes down the hall to me with a picture book. "Mom!" he barks. "Story?"
He likes Berenstein Bears books. He likes Sister Bear Gets Stage Fright.
It isn't all happiness. The children get sad sometimes. When Helen first came, she was regularly overcome by grief; perhaps once a week she fought off tears, then surrendered, and collapsed in my arms, sobbing for her late mother. I hugged her and we cried together.
From the first moment, she has treasured having a mother again; she cannot bear for me to cough, or get a cold, or fall down. She has forbidden me to roller-blade with them; seeing her panic and deep distress the last time I tried it (instantly falling down), I put the skates aside, as not worth the grief they caused her.
When Helen first came, she tried to find out if the children around her had parents, as her friends in Ethiopia had not.
Always, when she met a new child, a new neighbor, play-date, or classmate, she'd run first to my side and whisper: "Does she have a mother?" "Does he have a mother?" The answer was always yes.
After six months in America, Helen stopped asking. She got it: American children have mothers.
This past July, I found myself back in Addis Ababa with my two oldest sons, Seth and Lee, 21 and 18, who both have spent time volunteering there; and we had permission from the foster home to bring Yosef and Daniel to our small hotel. The four guys shared a bedroom so uproariously that the Nigerian United Nations official down the hall had to keep calling the front desk to complain.
After a big day of soccer and swimming and ice cream, Seth steered Yosef, 10, into the bathroom where he turned on the shower, pantomimed what was required, and withdrew.
Yosef showered, then danced back into the hotel room dripping wet and stark naked.
Seth shooed him back into the bathroom and threw a pair of boxer shorts in after him.
Yosef danced back out a moment later, dripping wet, stark naked, and with the boxer shorts on his head.
Lee later said, "These are the two happiest human beings I've ever seen in my life."
Recently a visitor to the boys' foster home interviewed them on tape. "Why do you want to go to America?" she asked Daniel, and the question was translated into Amharic.
He replied in Amharic and an Ethiopian adult translated.
"It is rather sad for us to live in an orphanage. In America we will have a family."
One of my favorite remarks on adoption comes from the writer Sallie Tisdale. She, like many international adoptive parents, copes with people pretending to find her marvelous. "Oh, you've saved these children," people say to me."How grand." "How noble." "You're really so good."
Madonna-watchers seem to feel: "Madonna wants us to feel she's saved this child; that's why she's doing this, to get that credit."
But adoption is not about doing good works. For that, we have volunteer assignments, we have charitable giving. If doing good deeds is what you're after, no trained adoption professional on earth will process your paperwork.
Sallie Tisdale writes: "Adoption is not rescue, not exactly, and yet I saved the lives of these children. Writing that, I feel no sense of nobility or virtue, nothing lofty at all. I saved the lives of my own children, which is a selfish act. I saved them for myself."

What a crazy two weeks!

My daughter turned ten years old on October Ninth! I still can not get over it. Where did the time go? How many things did I miss, or over look or just not realize I needed to make a visual image for my stores of memories. I cried and cried friends- I really did! She's into the double digits now. I know there will be new experiences for us to have together now, and I am truly excited about that. I just didn't realize how soon it would happen. She is just as exquisite now at ten as she was at two, maybe even more so. Her genuine interest in everything and everyone and her deep concern for it all, its just so honest and raw. I do feel privileged to be experiencing such a great little being and I am only 31 years old. She is having a bit of turmoil right now concerning whether she believes Santa is real. We have discussed the spirit of Christmas and holidays and the opportunities they provide. But really she is looking for some concrete answers- that I just refuse to give! LOL. She has recently really gotten the hang of reading, and is enjoying it immensely. She takes great pleasure in being able to read the mail or an article in the paper that she knows I am interested in, but she is most likely not. She gives me a hug, even when she's been angry with me, and she has a freedom of heart and optimism that I am trying to take lessons on.
OK, if you are still reading this, perhaps you are thinking I am terribly vain for going on and on about my daughter. Its just that I am so happy to have her! All the forecasted troubles and life threatening scenario's that are played out for you when you find out you are pregnant at 21, it was never so. I never once doubted she would become my reason for breathing once they told me I was pregnant. She came at a pivotal time in my life. I was afraid of everything ahead of me, but never once did I feel she would prevent me from doing some other thing I was scheduled to do.

And its been right, always. So I am just amazed with her, and if that is somehow vain than so be it. I believe it was a 50/50 job. Fifty percent was just her being born with incredible spirit and inner love. The other fifty percent was making sure her interests were the most important thing in every single choice I made. Quitting my job (and putting off higher education) and becoming a nanny so I could be there to raise her. I met some amazing people that way and Kiana learned early on how to interact with other children and play media free as pseudo siblings, LOL. If you happen to be reading this, thank you families :) Adopting a kitten on her first birthday, and a dog on her second. She grew up loving animals and having a truly unique interest and deep connection with them. Leaving a two bedroom, rent controlled apartment in Hyde Park Boston, and the city I had grown to love. Making a choice to move back to the Berkshires where I spent some of my youth so that Kiana could experience the earth and country in its most magical form. Finding a relationship that was strong and supportive and witnessing the joining of two kindred people, my future husband and my daughter. Making family a priority, making her a priority without encouraging self centeredness. And here I am, ten years after having her, making a huge decision that affects all of us. Her, me, Fred-our family-us. Its a feeling, a deep rooted I just cant explain- feeling. There is a child out there, a beginning little spirit, that's meant- that is destined to be part of this family. We have tried different ways, we have been open to many experiences because we know it will happen. Time may frustrate us and sway us off track, but five years after that first conversation Fred and I had about adopting, we are still committed to making it happen.

On 10/7 I got violently ill and strained my neck while my head was in a bucket. By 10/10 I couldn't sleep and found myself in tears it hurt so much (although celebrating Kiana's birthday on 10/9 was fun). I saw the doctor, worked the next two days and then over the weekend found it was much worse. Fred gave me a lovely gift to celebrate our anniversary and was so good to me while I felt injured and wimpy. This week I took x rays, had a nerve stimulation test, and a chiropractor visit. Unfortunately this meant missing work, and having to lay motionless flat on my back with a heating pad under my neck. But today I am actually feeling better and yes I know, being on the computer or on the phone are two of the worst positions for this problem I am having. The x rays showed that my neck does not have the curve in it that it should, and so it is pressing down on the muscles, which are becoming inflamed and hurting the nerves. That's why I am having pain and tingling in my arms and fingers. How ever I feel I should get back to work next week and become more functional. Lenea is convinced I am allowing too much stress to interfere with my well being which is creating the pain and tension in my neck. I am hoping going to the chiropractor will help.

Our application to Wide Horizons was finally accepted and I had my first conversation with our social worker this past week. She sounded very young but also friendly. Unfortunately it means quite a few trips to the Hartford area for us which I didn't realize. First we have to go together for a two hour visit with her, then go separately each for a one hour visit. Then we attend some four hour class, and then she schedules a visit out to the house. After all of that she writes up and submits the homestudy to the company (Wide Horizons). Only then can our forms get sent out to receive governmental approval and we can begin the long process of waiting for a child referral. Fred is very fearful of starting this long process and I can understand. It seems daunting to not only have to work six days a week, but also make the time to do all these visits and requirements. On top of that we have to continue to raise the 8-10 thousand dollars we still need to do this. "Maybe we should keep working with the state now that we have a new social worker" he said. But for me the waiting without any time frame at all is just getting so, so hard. And if we do get the phone call, and we receive a child, will they let us keep him? Will they decide to keep him in our adoptive home? Not knowing is tortuous. I will admit that I naively thought that if you pay $25,000.00 to adopt a child the process would go thoroughly, but quickly. But apparently when you have 3,500 families willing to pay that much money, you can make the process any way you choose. It is remember, a company, as is any company and also governments.

"Miracles seem to rest, not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from far off, but upon our perceptions being made finer so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear that which is about us always." Willa Cather

"Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. " Samuel Ullman

"Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another. " Mary Catherine Bateson

"The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human." John Naisbitt

Struggling

I am struggling today- and I want to be open enough to share that. I am struggling to see peoples kindness, their empathy and understanding. What are we allowing to define ourselves? I would like to say that I do not pass judgment on people. I wait, and listen, perhaps tentatively to learn about someone new. But I look around at all the inhumanities, and I cant help but be bewildered.

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom."
--Viktor Frankl


I know, I know. We teach people how to treat us by what we allow. I can read this, I can undertsand and agree. But I am searching for the examples.


"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."
--Earl Nightingale


"The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention: the need for rhythm in life ... the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril."
--Richard Baker

"There is something deep within our nature. A guiding light if you will. A voice that always speaks of goodness. A voice that is always moving us towards more love, towards more life. Can we hear it? Sitting in silence is an attempt to become in tune with your own self, with your own voice."
--Sukh Chugh

"The accumulation of small, optimistic acts produces quality in our culture and in your life. Our culture resonates in tense times to individual acts of grace. "
--Jennifer James

"One of the great joys that comes from generosity is the understanding that no matter how much or how little we have by the world’s standards, if we know we have enough, we can always give something. "
--Sharon Salzberg

"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, quality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men can build up. "

--Martin Luther King Jr