I Always Knew That I was Adopted

A friend of mine asked recently how old I was when I learned that I was adopted. It's an great question and I realized that I hadn't written about it. The answer really is that I always knew....how, I really don't know. My parents were always open with us kids about our adoptions (my brother and I were both adopted). They were also told us frequently that they loved all four of us (two adopted, two biological) kids equally the same, regardless...that we were their children.

There is one conversation that I clearly remember - I'm guessing it was after my brother and sister were born, so I'd be just shy of five years old. My mom and dad had a huge vegetable garden and my mom always started her plants from seeds. In this particular instance we were in the kitchen looking at the seedlings on the windowsill. My mom pointed out that there were two different kinds of tomatoes - some were yellow tomatoes and the others were red. She said "They are all tomatoes, they look the same and smell the same, but they have different colored fruit." She went on to tell me that my siblings and I were like the tomatoes - we were all part of the same family. At least that's what sticks in my young memory from that time. Thinking back, it seemed to make sense, perhaps more than it does now, although it's an interesting analogy.

I want to go backwards a bit before moving forward with my story. My story is interesting, and there's plenty more to tell. But there's anguish too. If you've read this blog from the beginning, you'll remember that I spent much of my time in grad school delving into the subject of my adoption. My post from June 15th - "A Dance Into Grief - An Adoptee's Journey" begins to touch on that work, and it also refers back to my very first post "She Kissed Me Goodbye".

During the movement class in grad school that was the impetus for the dream I had about being born, I realized that I needed to explore why movement had brought up these memories, and how I could use movement to further understand the grief that I was feeling around losing my mother.

From my grad school journal:

"I had to prove to myself that newborns feel grief when they are separated from their mothers. I fact, I even wondered if infants were capable of feeling grief. In 2001, there hadn't been much research done on this subject because the assumption was that "enough love and care can make everything right." (Axness) In fact, newborns can recognize their mother's voice and smell, having been in her womb for nine months. Child development specialists now realize how important it is for the newborn to be in its mother's presence in order to feel safe in their new environment. When newborns are deprived of maternal contact, depression may result, causing loss of appetite and other signs of failure to thrive. The child was there and actually experienced being left alone by the biological mother and handed over to strangers. "That she may have been only a few days or a few minutes old makes no difference. She had a 40 week experience with a person with whom she probably bonded in utero, a person to who she is biologically, genetically, historically and more importantly, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually connected." (Verrier)"

NB: My parents were unable to take me home for a month after I was born. During that time I contracted a staph infection and was hospitalized. When they were finally able to take me home, I was refusing to eat. In the three days that it took for mom and dad to get me to the pediatrician, I gained as much weight as I had in five weeks in the nursery at the adoption agency.

After a fairly deep dive into the literature at the time, "I was convinced that infants are not only capable of feeling grief, but when separated at birth from their mothers feel an intense grief and actually mourn the loss. I wanted to explore my grief from my dream about being born further. Feeling that the dream had been inspired by a combination of reading and movement in the class, I decided that I would use movement for further exploration."

"Anna Halprin uses the term "psychokinetic visualization" to describe the process of connecting images to movements and emotions. She explains that the process has three parts. First, finding a personal image inside ourselves, then drawing it, then "dancing it". When these three levels of awareness are united in our bodies and through movement, we will make dances with the power to heal."

"I created three paintings inspired by the dream. The first was a fairly literal image of the room from the dream with the Venetian blinds and the dim, hazy light. The 2nd depicted the intense rage and grief that I felt. In the 3rd painting, I tried to capture the confusion, devastation and loneliness that I felt when my mother left. Visual art may be too comfortable a way of expressing my emotions, being a medium that I'm well versed in. Perhaps movement, being a new form of expression for me, was the vehicle I needed to pull up the really old and painful memories."

"My friend Lisa, who was in my program and taking the same class, came over to my house one day. We'd both decided that we wanted to try doing "authentic movement" in response to our paintings. I was extremely apprehensive. I knew it was going to be difficult, and I didn't want to do it."

Venetian Blinds

Grief and Rage

Confusion

Axness, M. (n.d.). Parenting for peace: Marcy AXNESS, Phd. Parenting for Peace. https://marcyaxness.com/

Halprin, Anna (2000) Dance as a Healing Art, LifeRythym, Mendocino CA

Verrier, Nancy Newton (1991) The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child, Gateway Press, Inc. Baltimore, MD