And in the beginning......

I began this blog and I chose this background for a reason. I first saw blocks, small squares, building blocks, pieces that are put together to create a large whole like pixels on a screen, things people don't really notice or see, or take for granted, until they are partially missing or gone as a whole. Terms such as pieces, parts, blocks, fragments, are all symbolic of what is missing and absent from the foundation of my life that leaves me partial in so many ways and what I am endlessly doing, assembling my adopted self. As an adoptee this terminology has a depth of significance that goes beyond the grasp of John Q. Public because as adoptees are told we are like everyone else but for me, and so many others, this is not the truth. Like Eve that ate from the tree of life once you know the truth you can't go back.

In the pursuit of these truths I have fallen down and scraped my knees and elbows tripping over obstacles and pulled myself back up. I have screamed in jubilation over the discovery of long sought facts and collapsed in defeat over rejection and blows to parts of my very soul I thought would die and risen up to go on. I have spent hours and days over keyboards searching and seeking, weeping over them in desperation, shreiking above them in exhilaration, pounding on them in sheer aggravation, and yes spilling the occasional beer on them, opened my big mouth far too often, and fought for change and rights along with others that are on a similar journey. But more importantly I faced what I once thought would kill me but have come to realize has only made me stronger and more determined to change the system that failed me.

And in this journey I found a book inside of me. A chronology in poetry of my search and semi-reunion story which I hope to share more of later. I wrote and wrote and wrote until I couldn't write anymore. My fingers at times couldn't fly as fast nor could my mind grasp the emotions that came pouring forth. Sometimes I didn't even think I just felt, and purged, and at the end of this catharsis I had a book "Assembling Self." It has a great ending......I found myself.

And, when I held this book in my hands I had so longed to complete I felt like Forrest Gump after running 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours when he turned to his followers and stated "I'm pretty tired....I think I'll go home now." And so I did....home to me.

My poems are parts of me some I like such as my graceful athletic body and ability to communicate with wit and intelligence, some I don't like as in my gapped teeth and nose, and some that are as vital to me as my beating heart.

And so I feel the need to write again. Unfortunately in my older age I not only have lost the ability to see, hear, and remember but the ability to spell which as a former teacher is quite perplexing. I seem to have a huge problem with double consonants and yes I even had to look up occasionally. But, in this search and fight for truth you take the good with the bad and do the best you can with it and continue on to fight another day. Thanks for listening.