Deciding to Live with Less and Other Minimalist Lessons Learned from Fire

I live near the ocean in California in a canyon area below the foothills in a high fire danger area. We’ve had a number of fires over the years that burned deep into our neighborhood. So far we have been lucky and our home was spared.

There is a part of me that wants to move away, but we live in a wonderful place when fire is not present. And there is a greater part of me that wants to let go of my attachment to things. To enjoy what I have, to deepen my spiritual understanding with an awareness and mindset that if it were lost, it wouldn’t be the end of me. I’d be sad, deeply sad, but I would rise again.

I’ve lived side by side with neighbors and close friends whose homes did burn, and they rebuilt their houses and their lives. When I stood beside them I never imaged myself as that strong.

The first time we had to evacuate with a fire looming nearby we were given about an hours notice. I had three small children at the time and my first and only thought was to get them safely in the car. We gathered the dog and cat next, and then the police came to tell us not to leave yet, to wait until they came for us because they were escorting families out since the road way was jammed with traffic. My husband sat in the car with the kids and suggested I run and grab a few necessities for the children, and get some of our “special” things. But when I went back into our house what we had previously viewed as special, looked unimportant.

What should I save? It was in the days prior to digital photography so I grabbed the photo albums. Next I walked from room to room surveying our belongings. I had a nice house filled with lovely things, but all of my prized positions looked like junk. In that moment I understood that what I appreciated most was the washing machine, our beds, the bathtub, the refrigerator. And our kitchen where hours earlier I was happily preparing lunch, unaware that by dinner time we would be in danger of loosing our home and possibly our lives.

With each fire and forced evacuation I always manage to see the upside, but I also began to gain a sense of urgency, and went into a deep primal hunter and gathering, survival mode. It came from having to leave the dinner on the table one evening when flames were spotted nearby, and from having to comfort hungry children throughout the night. Four years later when the next fire occurred I evacuated with food supplies.

This year the drought in California is severe, and once again we are facing extremely high fire danger. Yet I’ve begun to feel something settle down inside me. There is a quiet calm born of knowing that I no longer think of my possessions as an extension of myself.

A few years ago I joined a growing community of women and men committed to reducing the amount of clothes we buy and wear. My goal to cultivate a small wardrobe led me to Project 333. Once I had tamed my closet and rid myself of excess, I began to examine and re-evaluate my shopping habits, and my consumptive nature in other areas of my life.

While I will never be a minimalist in the sense of living as sparse as possible, I’ve come to understand that I enjoy the minimalist lifestyle of owning less. It provides me with freedom, calm, enhances and gives me greater satisfaction than owning an abundance of things ever did.

I’ve also begun to understand that living with the threat of fire for the past 25 years has taught me valuable life skills, and I’ve learned good habits.

We keep the dog leash by the front door. The cat carrier is in an easy to reach location. I’m careful to keep my car keys, cell phone, charger, my glasses and my purse organized and within easy reach. Gone are the days when I plunked things down without thinking about where I put them.

There is this “idea” that when fire threatens, and given ample time and safety permits, a person would want to save the valuables. But in my neck of these city-woods we have learned that what’s most valuable when you are homeless is a pair of jeans, shoes, a jacket, a blanket—and a car that is not stuffed to the roof with useless belongings. Because chances are you will need to sleep in that car, along with the kids, the dog and cat.

From needing to leave quickly to evacuate multiple times the lesson my family members, neighbors and I have learned is that when your closet (or your entire house) is jam-packed, it is impossible to quickly pull out a few necessary key items. And if you are given the luxury of time and safety, with fewer belongings it is much easier to find and grab what you need, and run out the door.

I never imagined that I would grow to view fire, as a wise teacher and that I would embrace her lessons. Yet each time I clean and de-clutter my home my motto is, if I’m not using this item, then it is better to give it to someone who will. Because I won’t have a second chance to give it away if the fire takes it.

I’ve also grown more aware of the right use of world resources, and the exploitation of garment workers and manufacture workers calls me to reflect deeply.

Before purchasing or acquiring anything I’ve begun the habit of asking myself:

How much do I actually need it, in comparison to what it has taken from the planet and from workers, and from others in order to produce it?

How often will I use it, and how long will it last?

When and how will I dispose of it?

I know for sure, though, that you don’t have to experience a fire to learn the value of deciding to live with less. Yet for me living with fire has been a lens through which to examine my own life.

Some day I will move away from this canyon area near the foothills, with skies filled with Red Tail Hawk, Owl, Golden Eagle and Raven. But I must keep my lens wherever I go. I must remember to see with fire eyes.

Author's Note
This essay was first published in the The Huffington Post and is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.

Project December

I have a new December holiday tradition—we began doing less. The arrival of wide-open, unplanned hours meant that when a spur of the moment great idea pops into one of my kids’ head, I had the freedom to say yes, if I wanted, without feeling the need to struggle with dropping everything else, and we could take off and do it while the idea was still hot. Looking back I can’t imagine the great loss if I had ignored the call.

Typically, logical, linear thinking took hold of me during the winter holiday season. And aside from hating the fact that we were always too busy and I was often too tired, it remained one of my favorite times of the year.

What I didn’t like was that immediately after fresh cranberries and pumpkins began making their appearance in November, I became programed. Dependable. A slave to what was expected of me. And when I depended completely on following along with what we had always done, and were expected to do, year after year, it became predictable. Tiresomely sensible. Boring.

Our family celebrates Christmas, and my pattern was to make a list at the beginning of the month and I never had time to check it twice. I was too busy doing. My mother’s-mind had become programmed to think consequentially (supply and demand). If the cards didn’t get sent out earlier enough, or if they didn’t go out at all, I graded myself with a holiday F. On top of all else I aspired to the notion that the house ought to be cleaner than usual, with a perfectly decorated tree. When the cat batted the ornaments off the tree, and the dog (or the baby) chewed them, I lost hope.

Then one year in early December, many years ago, I heard a dark horse in my mind, calling to me.

“Call and cancel.” It whispered.

“Don’t take down the box of Christmas decorations this year. Do less, and do it with more love.”

Instead of pulling out the carton of our treasured things that we usually put up around the house and on the tree, I told my family that we were going to celebrate with a nature theme. The kids and I went to the florists and bought a gallon container of Baby’s Breath, and we strung the tree with white lights and tucked small clumps of the white Baby’s Breath into the branches. We placed a pair of red flowers on the table, to increase the energy of health and vitality. And that’s all we did. The effect was stunning, simple. It required little assembly, and the clean up after Christmas was easy.

I wish that I could tell you I learned about being more with less right then and there. But I didn’t. I also didn’t learn it the year my son had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, when I couldn’t stretch wide enough to cover all that needed to be done. That year the fear of the unknown gave me the incentive to do just a little more for the holidays. Sure, I wanted to have some wonderful memories for my three children to remember so that they would be able to recall more than hospitals and sickness. Yet my inspiration in the cancer years came from realizing that I like doing something a little bit special for my family whenever I can. Because I know my usual tendency is to get caught up in the tangle of everyday things braided with holiday responsibilities, and I rush through my days.

But I didn’t rush through anything when my son had cancer. I moved through each minute with careful thought. My mind was a camera capturing each second. The experience of cancer did have some unexpected good surprises for our family however. It taught us about the power of now, to pay attention to each moment. And it shook up our holiday traditions, teaching me to let some of our traditions go against the grain, to let them go haywire and to let go of the outcome.

Except the lesson didn’t stick. Every December my frenzy returned, and after my son grew healthy again I reverted back. Back to holiday doing.

Then one Christmas years and years later, age gave me what I have always longed for. Perhaps other people might live forever, but I am pretty sure I won’t. The memory that I want to last and be passed on is that I am a mother who is not always a busy, frantic woman with worry wrinkles around her eyes. I also want it to go down in history that I am also relaxed, and fun to be with.

Every year since I have de-cluttered my commitments and allowed myself some freedom and breathing space. There are the years when I do decorate the house, send the cards, bake the cookies, buy and wrap beautiful gifts, volunteer and go to-ing and fro-ing. But I NEVER do all of these things in the same year anymore.

Now I choose one or two things to focus on. My rule is that it must be tasks I want to do, no obligations, and I let the rest slide, so that I will have time to go ice skating or spend a lazy afternoon reading book after book to my three children, with a bowl of popcorn at our side. Or have time, after the kids are tucked into their beds, for me to gaze at the night sky, cold, clear and studded with stars.

The result is the December holiday season is no longer crazy making for me. I look forward to the one or two holiday inspired things I want to do with more love. The reward for me is in discovering what it is I want to highlight each year, and enjoying the unplanned things we dream up as a family now that I allow time to go with the flow.

This is what I want to claim as a mother and grandmother, for the time I give to be remembered. That is why I now wrap it, and not objects, and give my time as a gift to my family.

First published in Adoption and Foster Parenting Today. Reprinted in the Huffington Post.

Photo credit Santa Fe Daily Photo.

The Clothes We Wear at Home

It was one of those days. I couldn’t wait to get home from work and change my clothes. A heavy July fog rolled in and I was so tired I decided to put on my bathrobe.

After dinner my husband sliced watermelon. It was my turn to wash the dishes. What could it possibly hurt, I thought, if I left the dirty dishes sitting on the table for a while? We generally kept our house clean, yet on this day the rest of the house was a mess, with sandy beach towels, the picnic basket and cooler from a pleasure-filled weekend strewn in the hall, so I decided to let the kitchen go too. What I really wanted to do was read my book.

My six-year-old daughter twirled around the room in a see-through lilac chemise rescued from a rummage sale box. She was wearing lipstick too, and blue eye shadow reached past her eyebrows.

My three-year-old son was still potty training. He could take off his underpants five hundred times a day, but never once would he get them back on again himself. Sometimes I let him go bottomless. That’s how he was on this particular evening, playing on the floor with little cars. Eyes filled with brown warmth peeked out from under a cap of shiny dark hair; his underpants, however, were nowhere in sight.

While I was relaxed in the untidy living room, nose in my book, the doorbell rang. My husband answered the door. “I’m a social worker from the adoption agency,” a male voice said. “I live a few blocks from here, and thought I’d drop by on my way home from work and meet you.”

I lurched bolt upright. The wood floor felt gritty on my bare feet. Before we had a chance to offer our visitor a seat, I heard the back door bang. In bounded our six-month-old Newfoundland puppy. Her bark had a friendly woof in it. All sixty pounds of her romped in circles around this man I had not yet met.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cat leap on the kitchen table and start licking one of the bowls. The scent of onions, garlic and roasted peppers from the pot of chili Verde I’d cooked for dinner drenched the air. I was grateful I’d picked a huge bunch of fresh daisies that morning; perhaps the flowers would catch the social worker’s eye and keep it off of the cat.

Fortunately we were experienced with the adoption process, and we knew surprise visits were not part of the procedure. The social worker from the adoption agency was only trying to be neighborly by stopping by instead of phoning. He talked with us for few minutes, and said he would call us on the telephone to set up a home-study interview appointment.

This story is excerpted from my memoir, Pushing up the Sky and it became a marker moment in my wardrobe. It got me thinking about the clothes we only wear at home. You know what I’m talking about. The gray sweatpants long past their prime. Sweat shirts and t-shirts that are faded and worn out, but never thrown away. Clothes we wouldn’t wear out in public, but are good enough to wear in that place we call home because they represent the comforts of home, and we feel good while we are wearing them. Or do we?

The problem was, I didn’t. Something about wearing worn, frayed, unflattering clothes made me feel tired, worn out. It was also hard for me to relax in my oldest worn wear because those are the clothes I put on when I’m doing weekend warrior projects, and cleaning out the garage, or for house chores and yard work.

That long ago evening (wearing my bathrobe) I took a pledge. I vowed that forever more I would own clothing to wear at home that was comfortable, presentable and made me feel as good as I did in my plush, turquoise bathrobe, yet appropriate for any spur of the moment event that might take place during daylight hours at home.

Why had I neglected home-wear clothing?
I had a professional writing-life work wardrobe that I wore for readings and author appearances, along with a few lovely outfits to wear for nicer social occasions, but I only wore those clothes at home when we had guests. What I lacked was clothing to wear on any ordinary writing-day at home that was comfortable and made my heart sing.

Forgive yourself if this portrait reminds you of yourself. It’s almost everyone’s secret, except for a few really honest people. Of course some of our friends are the type who always look their best, at home, or anytime, anywhere. We love these women, but for a few minutes let’s not think about them. Our souls long for acceptance, and when we start being honest we get our sense of humor back, and then we are half way home to being able to be kind to ourselves, to treat ourselves as we do a beloved dog, cat, friend, and family members.

Home. It serves as both origin and return, as haven. As a source of security and also platform for collecting, organizing and utilizing the things with which we maintain and express ourselves. For a number of years I have been working from home. My home has become the center of my universe. It is where I work, rest and socialize. When I first began working at home I adhered to a rigid early morning schedule of fixing my hair and putting on a bit of make up, and dressing myself in a manner that (the critics deemed) was appropriate business attire for working from home.

It didn’t take me long to figure out this was not who I wanted to be. That type of mandate was the reason I left the corporate business world and began freelance writing and dividing my time with a part-time job as director of volunteers for an animal shelter assistance program. I had the freedom of working from home and began to follow my own dress code rules.

I think many of us become nicer as we get older, less judgmental of ourselves and of others. Life tends to round off our sharp edges.

During my transition period of adjusting to working at home in 2010, I found Project 333 but I needed to think about it for a while. It sounded too restrictive, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and eventually the idea of downsizing my wardrobe and becoming moderately minimal in all aspects of my life became irresistible and I climbed aboard.

After I edited my closet, letting go of a sizable amount, releasing a number of items the wardrobe critics say every fashionable woman should have, including the white button-down shirt I never wore and I slowly began to find my style, my own true north, and it was rooted in simplicity.

Variety is important to me. I like plenty of spice. However, the wide variety I crave cannot be satisfied through clothing. It hails from living a diverse lifestyle and from the multiplicity of people I meet or spend time with, and the places I go with scents of lime or plumeria, sesame or curry, surrounding me. From the music I listen to and the books I read. Books with diverse themes serve as a passport, allowing me to glimpse into peoples and a terrain unknown to me, so that I can learn and grow, understand and see through the eyes of someone who has lived different than I have. There was a time when I thought it necessary to have a lot in common with a person in order for friendship to grow. Now I know it has more to do with my own growth and ability to reach out without having expectations.

Color is central to me, but it no longer dominates my wardrobe. Yellow and orange arrive in the form of long walks at sunset, from the Nasturtium blooming near the path to the beach.

Once I stopped focusing on always dressing for the outer world, and allowed my own needs and heart’s desire to come first, it was fun to cultivate a wardrobe of clothing I love and enjoy wearing at home.

I plan, select and purchase my at-home wear with important key factors in mind. My writing life is messy, filled with children, dogs, cats, pet hair, muddy footprints and sticky fingers. When I’m not writing, at my computer, or reading, I’m active at home—cooking, cleaning, yard work and pet care. Our house is subject to extreme temperatures, downright cold inside or sweltering hot, and I dress accordingly. If I lived in the city I might dress differently at home. Yet this old house on the Northern California coast defines my needs.

As columnist and author Molly Ivins said, “Charm doesn't fade, wit doesn’t age, and knowledge is still priceless. If we live well, every year we become a year’s worth better, smarter, and wiser.”

For me, growing smarter and wiser includes knowing that I’d rather be comfortable at home than chic, and that comfortable does not need to equal frumpy. And while I still care about looking my best when out in public, I can accomplish it with a tiny wardrobe personalized by what works best for my life right now, in this moment.

I’m more successful in terms of how kind to myself I have become, what a wonderful tender friend I am to myself. I care enough about me to fill a vase with purple Astrids, and make myself a garden salad and pots of soup, even when I’m alone. And I’ve gifted myself a small collection of just-right-for-me clothing to wear at home.

First published at Recovering Shopaholic: Trade Your Full Closet For A Full Life

One Possible Thing Before Breakfast

The dogs are shedding their winter coats, and every day I comb them out, ranking their fur outside on the grass. Loose hairs have been falling from my head too. I sweep up the thirteen-inch-long strands of my fallen hair that collected on our wood floor and then wound around my toes. And then suddenly it occurs to me to stop brushing my hair inside the house. Instead, I brushed in my garden and let those fallen hairs blow in the wind, winding around the branches of the peach tree. Maybe a bird would weave my hairs into her nest.

Strikingly handsome weeds grow at the edge of my garden. It is a manageable plot stretching along the backyard fence line that borders the creek and its surrounding wilderness. Newly planted tomatoes, zucchini, cilantro, basil and serranos grow alongside wild snapdragons and hummingbird sage. A bird feeder stands in the middle, I add an extra handful of Sunflower seeds for the Scrub Jays who send the smaller feed to the ground like rain while searching for their favorite treats. Below the feeder, birdseed sprouts in a crazy tangle of wheat-like stalks, along with deep-apricot milkweed blossoms. And at the creeks edge a wild sunflower has appeared and is in full bloom.

You couldn’t plan to grow a garden like mine, certainly not in the city. You must be willing to embrace what nature offers.

A flock of ravens gossip harshly at me. Squash blossoms turn their yellow heads and face the sky, and the gift of berries dug from the backyard of a friend in Alaska, and the handful of Nasturtiums seeds I planted 18 years ago have multiplied so many times they now fill the hillside and are making their way down to the creek. The Nasturtium toss and bent in the wind waving their orange flowers.

Every morning I bush my hair in the garden. Strands of my hair fall to the earth or float away in the wind.

I take a few minutes to sit still, watch, and listen. A cottontail rabbit sneaks under the wire fence and a moment later a squirrel shimmies down the Avocado tree. At first they don’t see each other, but they both see me, and at the same moment they turn to flee and run smack into each other. They sit startled for a few seconds, nose to nose. Then both turn and run away. Then they stop running and come back, and for a few minutes they chase each other in circles around me. When I stand up they both head for the fence line and disappear.

Time in the garden sooths me. All of the tension and worries I've been carrying have dropped away. My hair continues to shed and thin, but I stop worrying about it. Time stops and a deep rightness takes hold of my being.

Voices Confronting Pediatric Brain Tumors, Johns Hopkins University Press

Visit www.nibjournal.org/news/voices.html to download this open access collection.

My essay, Prepping for the Day You Hope Never Arrives: Facing Recurrence, is included. Page 29.

Following the release of the Voices publication it was also a great honor and sincere privilege to be invited to sit on a panel, speak and read my story at the ASBH American Society of Bioethics and Humanities Conference.

Since I've been writing and speaking in other genres and venues, and away from the pediatric brain tumor world for a number of years, I felt like the fairy godmothers must have tapped me with a magic wand, leaving me eloquent and able to speak on a tender topic far beyond my usual ability. I’m sure this must be because my fellow panelist, a beautiful and articulate young woman who is a pediatric brain tumor survivor, spoke and rode on the wings of grace and presented a paper that was far beyond excellent.

I am deeply appreciative for our outstandingly good audience, and a deep bow, many thanks, and grateful acknowledgements to the editors, to my fellow panelists, to ASBH, and Johns Hopkins University Press.

Rejecting cancer language in terms of winning, or losing the Battle

“Why do you suppose when a person dies from cancer they say he lost the battle?” My then seven year old son asked. His face was pinched with confusion. I blinked in surprise.

“Don’t worry Mom, I know dying is not about losing.” And with the zeal of a kid determined to restore order to the universe he announced, “Heaven is filled with winners.”

In 1991 my seven-year-old son faced a cancer diagnosis and received medical treatment of outstanding quality. For eight years his scans were clear and he was healthy and strong again.

Then in 1999, at age fifteen, the tumor recurred and he received more excellent medical treatment. Still the brain tumor gained ground rapidly.

Courage, like love, requires hope to flourish. My son found his way through the stages as they came up. Having a positive attitude was important to him. As ill as he was, he gave the impression he’d outlive all of us. But suddenly his condition worsened.

Following my son's death I received stacks of cards I treasured from earnest friends. Their sweet messages almost restored my courage, yet nearly all contained the lines, "We are so sorry your son lost the fight."

Every day since I have begun to witness lives lived for which I call winning. The child on chemo who reassures a new friend that "her hair will too grow back." The teenager who drags his IV pole from his bed to sit outside with friends. The young mother who allows a Hospice nurse to help her wash her hair and take a bath. The father, neighbor, teacher, your friends and mine.

Every day ordinary people are called upon to do extraordinary things, like finding pockets of happiness, reaching deep, loving wide and living a good life in the midst of a cancer diagnosis—even when sometimes it appears life is coming to a full circle closure.

Perhaps not cancer, yet each one of us will die one day.

What I know for sure is my son and dozens of others I’ve loved who have lived long and short lives with cancer have proved we must challenge and reject cancer language and cliches that define life and death in terms of winning, or losing.

First published at Candlelighters, American Childhood Cancer Foundation

Journal Writing and Talking Circles With Kids and Teens

I never say we’re going to learn our culture, but the kids learn it because they’re living it. In our journal writing circles I don’t necessarily say, we’re going to explore our identity, yet most of the time this is what we do.

Our classes are held outdoors under a bead-blue sky. We stretch out on the grass, a breeze blowing. I remind the group of twelve-year olds gathered not to worry about spelling or punctuation, the goal is to write as fast as they can, and produce a page or two or three of rough draft uncensored thoughts. To jump-start the kids into writing I lead with a question.

“What are a few things about yourself that you think other people don’t understand?” Then I add, as I do every time I work with students young or old, “Don’t worry if you veer off the topic. Just write anything that comes into your mind.” After each person has had time to write down thoughts, we go around the circle and anyone who wants to, reads what they have written. Confidentially is always a moot point. So, sometimes there are those who want to crumple up the paper after they have written, before or after reading aloud. That’s OK. The purpose is to tap into our minds, and see what might be lurking in our subconscious. We don’t need to save what we have written, or turn it into a monument. Writers are visionaries.

We routinely practice a form of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance. As a writer, and an instructor of creative writing, everyday I practice this form of faith. As a mother and grandmother with the goal of supporting my children's developing sense of identity of who they are, and where they come from, I also routinely practice faith by trusting that I am doing my best job of helping my kids find avenues to explore and launch their feelings. And silence is silence, and nothing about it is golden if I allow myself to believe that children, who don’t talk about race, or racial teasing or racial stereotyping, aren’t dealing with these issues.

The most effective journaling sessions are when the rules are firm. With kids and teens it’s generally best to set a “no parents allowed” rule. (Generally it is best to set a no parents allowed rule for anybody writing down their private thoughts, even for those of us who are over 50.) No criticizing, no making fun of anything anyone writes, with a focus on compassionate listening offers the best chance for kids to peel back the layers of their personalities, and figure out what they really want to say, and what questions they want to ask.

I’ve found the most successful journaling circles are when the kids have common bonds and emotional links with each other such as growing up Native American or Korean American or having been adopted transracially. I keep the majority of the writing topics open and flexible and not centered on adoption, or ethnicity and identity. Slants specific to those topic areas spring up automatically and will present themselves in a far more creative light than if I’d forced the subject. Yet usually I add one or maybe two writing topics in specific areas common to the group experience. Recently with a group of daughters adopted from China I opened by saying, “Name three ways in which you think of yourself as being typically Asian, and three ways in which you don’t.” I had a second specific theme to suggest they write on later on, except the group bent over their note pads and wrote fast, like the wind, and they spent the rest of the hour talking about a spin off comment, namely “If you could tell the kids at school exactly what you are thinking when they ask—but where are you really from?”

Since our purpose of journaling together is born of friendship, and not a therapy session where the focus is on identifying problems and finding solutions, I find it is best to let the writing flow naturally. Letting go of expectations is a must. As a lover of the written word, I want everyone to fall passionately into writing. But sometimes after a few minutes of writing everyone gets looped into a conversation. Which is why I follow journaling sessions with kids with a “Talking Circle” taken from my own American Indian oral tradition. When we do a Talking circle one person begins talking from their heart and they hold the “talking stick” while speaking, and have the opportunity to talk uninterrupted. When the person is finished speaking they pass the “talking stick” to the person next to them, and we go around the circle until everyone who wants to talk has had a chance to speak.

We are supportive listeners and refrain from offering suggestions or finding fixes because this cuts off the flow of conversation, respect and trust. When necessary I begin the dialogue but I don’t ride herd, my role is to act as guide, get the group going, and then let them drive. Even those kids who stay at the fringe of the group, or appear withdrawn or quiet, are still observing and learning from the group dynamics.

I’ve never facilitated or sat in any of the circles my kids have participated in because I wanted them to have a chance to figure out whom they might be without me breathing down their neck or trying to sneak a peek into their minds. Yet I’ve found when I gave my them the free space they needed to explore, we effortlessly communicated on a deeper level, often when I least expected it.

For example my son liked to tell me his deepest thoughts while I sat in five o’clock traffic, waiting to make a left turn. Looking back I know by timing it perfectly he was guaranteed I would listen, and not interrupt what he had to say.

As hard as it was to let my children go off alone to teen groups (and for my kids this also included transracial adoption groups, and cancer survivor, and siblings of cancer survivor camp intimate discussions) and not have any idea what they were thinking and experiencing— it was good practice for me because I felt those exact same pangs of longing and feeling left out when I dropped my daughter off at college and she moved into the dorm. And I felt that way again four years later when she graduated and got her first job, and moved into her own apartment.

Motherhood is about loving and being able to let go, and if we do the growing up right, our children will be blessed with opportunities to think and speak candidly about their feelings, and will walk away from us, one baby step at a time, towards rich and full lives of their own making.

First published at Adoption Today and reprinted at Speak Mom

Racism and White Privilege: Discussion, St. Louis 2015

KAAN: Racism and White Privilege: Discussion, St. Louis 2015

Mark Hagland, Susan Harris O'Connor MSW, Terra Trevor, Uhriel Edgardo Bedoya, Jen Hilzinger

Understanding the core concepts of race, white privilege and racism is made more complex and nuanced by the phenomenon of transracial adoption. A panel of discussants with extensive experience around all four subjects—transracial adoption, race, white privilege, and racism—lead a meaningful discussion of these topics.

THESE ARE THINGS I NEED TO SAY

STOP JEWISH HATE

TAKE A STAND: ART AGAINST HATE

A Raven Chronicles Anthology

Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, contains poems, stories and images from 117 writers, 53 artists, divided into five fluid and intersecting sections: Legacies, We Are Here, Why?, Evidence, and Resistance. We begin with Legacies because the current increased climate of hate in this country didn’t begin with the 2016 election, and to find its roots we must look to U.S. history.

An All-American Korean American 4th of July

An armload of bulgogi covers the grill and a circle of friends surround the barbecue. Everyone has a pair of chopsticks in hand and turn slices of the sizzling beef. A picnic table is laden with platters of pindaettok, mandu, heaping bowls of kimchi, chap chae, and romaine lettuce leaves with red bean sauce for dipping. There is plenty of sliced watermelon of course, and three rice cookers stand ready in a row. There is laughter around the table.

After another helping of dry cuttle fish, after we eat as much food as we can hold, we find a grassy spot under a shade tree, pull out a folk guitar, stretch back on the grass, and sing. The familiar melody has me humming along, while the group sings the lyrics in Korean. Most of the time I forget that my husband, our youngest daughter and I are the only ones who are not Korean. At these gatherings all my friends are Korean American, like two of my children. The afternoon leaves me with a contented feeling, a sense of belonging, like I have when I go to a family reunion.

However, my friends within the Korean community didn’t feel like family in the beginning, way back in 1987, when my kids were then four, six and ten. I needed to reach deep with faith, because in giving my kids the opportunity to grow up within an all-Asian group I also had to let go of them a little bit in order to allow them to find their place within the Korean community and to learn to identify and express themselves as Korean adoptees, instead of trying to fit into the stereotypical Korean model everyone expected them to be.

I’ve heard adoptive parents say they want the Korean American community to accept their family on the adoptive parents terms and not to absorb their kids. They don’t want them to take over. But I’ve never felt this way. I wanted my children to have the same opportunity to be immersed in the Korean community and discover their identity, as I did growing up mixed-blood Native American within Indian country. The difference is Korean culture was initially unfamiliar to me. We were making new friends and I was allowing them to take my children into a world unknown to me.

I remember my grandmother’s words. “Child,” she said, “We’re Indians, and our culture has been scattered into odds and bits, yet Indian people are determined to keep our life ways alive.”

I wanted to give my kids what was given to me, to make it possible for them to gather bits and pieces of Korean culture and braid it into our lives, and show them how to hold their heritage high. While my son and my oldest daughter explored the constantly evolving questions of what it means to be Korean American, and my younger daughter who is Cherokee, Seneca and Irish, grew increasingly more diverse, my husband and I sank in roots and worked to build lasting relationships and to let our new friends know that our interest in doing so was heartfelt.

For three decades our Korean community gatherings provided me with some of the deepest sharing I’ve ever known. At the picnic we rest just long enough for our food to settle, and then it is time to play games. There are sack races, three-legged races, a water balloon toss, followed by a scavenger hunt. Everyone plays, the grandmas and grandpas, even babies are encouraged to join in, and there is always someone willing to lend a helping hand.

I find it wildly wonderful that fancy equipment is not needed for our game playing. We have a ball, a blindfold, two gunnysacks and we have each other. Just people enjoying one another, a day of slowing down and relaxing at the park, it’s not always an easy thing to find.

First published in Adoption Today. Reprinted in The Huffington Post.

It's A Very Dirty Job

I grew up in a large extended mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, German, family of storytellers, and I spent lots of time with my grandparents and great-grandparents.

Recently, my dad, well into his 80s now, pulled out a photograph of his grandmother. She lived in a log cabin in Oklahoma and told stories from a rocking chair. Two flat pewter braids hung down to her waist; deep valleys formed between her cheekbones and chin. My dad grew up listening to her stories.

"Do you still remember her stories?” I asked him. Dad shook his head,” Only one. We went to her house on Saturdays and when I was twelve, usually my mind was on the baseball games I missed playing in on account of those visits.”

My dad perked up. “She told me about the time four men rode onto her land and pulled a gun on her. ‘It happened fast,’ Grandma said. ‘Shootin’ began, one guy shot the heads of two of my chickens. Never saw a better shot in my life. Them fellers weren’t interested in me. They wanted me to cook them a chicken dinner,’ Grandma explained.

I chuckled and looked at the photograph again. She was short, brown and sturdy, with boot moccasins on her feet. And from what I've heard, she was an excellent shot too.

“Grandma told me she cooked a real fine meal,” Dad said. “Then she let out a hardy roar and put her nose right up to mine and said, “Bobby, it was Frank and Jesse James.”

Then my dad’s face grew serious and he said, "Grandma gave birth to eleven babies. The first died at four months, the second at age eight. It went on like that for years—grandma giving birth and grandpa making babyboards, digging holes and lowering those dead babies into the ground. It was a time of measles and smallpox epidemics.”

My mind glimpsed my great-grandma. I felt a distant memory pulling me back, and I could hear her wailing like wind coming up—crying and swaying. I thought about how her cries probably drifted into the cabins of nearby white settlers, and I wondered if they knew the high, shrill sounds pressing against the night came from an American Indian mother mourning her dead baby.

And I thought about my own son, diagnosed with a brain tumor at age seven, but growing well and strong again following radiation and chemo, and then dying at age fifteen when the cancer recurred.

As we walked back, with the lights of the cabin glowing from the dark mist of trees, I felt the boundary of time fall away, as if my great-great-grandma and I had lived side by side.

“Well, six of Grandma’s children somehow managed to survive to adulthood.” I added.

Dad nodded. “The family slept on deer hides, Grandma shelled corn, ground it into meal and picked dandelions for their greens.”

I let my heart drift all the way back to great grandma and I felt her spirit and imagination become my own.

“Do you suppose Grandma really cooked chickens for the James brothers?” I asked.

Dad stared at me with wide brown eyes brimming with question marks.

“It’s hard to say,” he answered. "Maybe what she knew was how to get a twelve-year-old boy to listen.”

Freefall Home

It was a long time ago in the early 1950s, and I was visiting great-grandma in Freefall. I watched her peel and slice apples. I must have been pretty small; I stood on a stool to see what she was making.

She nodded at me; her eyes were quick behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Grandma rolled out dough, filled it with apples, and put it in the oven to bake.

Then I went out back on the porch to watch an orange-black garden spider, her web a zigzag of silk, right above my head. The cousins gave me more reasons to notice spiders. My legs were long and thin, and they called me Spider Web. I imagined myself a spider sitting in my parlor awaiting visitors.

In the little town, Freefall, on the edge of the reservation, laughter comes in handy.

Every Sunday went spent the whole day at my grandparents house, and often we stayed until way past my bedtime. I loved being in a house filled with relatives. It meant cousins to play with, lots of cousins. The uncles talked politics, shouting out their rock bottom opinions, while the aunties gossiped and the kids played together like a pack of wild pups.

Although I didn't know what it was called when I was young, I was raised in what is now known as the mixedblood fiddle tradition. The uncles played fiddle and grandma took out her teeth, dropped them into her apron pocket, and played the harmonica. She could step dance too and do the Bluegrass Clog. Often the kitchen was alive with fiddle music, banjo and guitar playing and grandma’s feet tapping.

Grandma was actually my great-grandma. But I didn't know this when I was a kid. She was just grandma to me. I also had two other grandmas, my dad's mother and my mom's mother. I had three grandpa's too, my dad's father, my mother's father and great-grandpa.

Sometimes instead of music, we watched westerns on television. Since grandma and grandpa and dad and I, and all of the aunties and uncles and cousins were all Indians, I thought it was rather funny that the black and white movies on television showed Indians sitting on horses at the rise of a hill, with their faces painted and living in tipis. All of the Indians we knew drove trucks or cars and lived in houses, like we did.

After dinner, a sweetness of cinnamon and steaming apples brought the uncles into the kitchen. “Grandma’s making apple pie.” Somebody said. I’d never tasted apple pie, but felt positive it would be the best dessert ever.

A few minutes later more relatives arrived. Nobody ever went away without eating. The aunties, apron-bound, brought out platters of fried chicken, biscuits crusty on the outside and soft inside and broiled cracked corn, and everyone gathered around the big table. So much food was pushed onto my plate. Afternoon sun poured through the window onto the table. Tiny dust particles were floating in the sunlight.

“Child, you eat like a bird.” Grandma said. “If you don’t eat more than that you’ll never get fat.” My older, round-faced cousins always cleaned their plates. My family thought it was necessary to eat lots of food to grow up the right way. But I couldn’t eat more, so I plainly could never hope to be normal and healthy.

Finally the pies were brought out.

“There won’t be enough pie to go around.” Someone hollered.

I smelled sweet, browned piecrust. My heart pounded. I wondered since I hadn’t eaten very much, maybe I would not get a piece of pie.

A clatter of plates was passed, with a bunch of forks, sugar and cream stirred into coffee. I grabbed my napkin by two corners and shook it out onto my lap and sat on the edge of my chair, my back bony, my elbows sharp, waiting.

Before anyone else, Grandma, all smiles, lifted a large triangle sized piece of apple pie onto my plate, I took a bite, tasted its warm crusty apple goodness, and I felt lucky and special.

First published in Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Native Realities

The Stories His Banjo Told

I grew up in a mixed-blood fiddle tradition on my dad's side of the family, and my maternal grandpa played the banjo and mandolin. He was widely known for his banjo playing, Eddie Peabody style, Frailing, Scruggs. You name it and he could play it. While everyone in the family liked hearing my grandpa play, I was the only one who liked hearing him play all of the time. The rhythm of his mandolin and banjo speak to me.

He had a long neck Plectrum built in the late 1920’s, three tenors and one old five-string plectrum. He liked to experiment with different tuning and kept each banjo at a different tune.

He got his first banjo in 1922 at the age of ten. It was a five-string banjo bought for five dollars out of the Montgomery Ward mail-order catalog. He earned the money by milking cows and selling the cream. He taught himself to play by looking at songs in old school music books he found at the thrift shop. After studying the song he would shut the book and try to match the tune.

“I left my first banjo in the coal shed at the house on 28th and Race Street.” My grandfather explained. “We moved and I forgot to get it. But it was just a cheap banjo and by the time we moved I had saved up enough to get myself a Paramount banjo.”

“Is that the same house where you slept out on the back porch in the summer and could hear mountain lions?" I asked. Then it dawned on me that Elbert, Colorado is fifty miles south east of Denver and not at all near the natural world. Remember, I had grown up as a child of the mountains, often falling asleep in my flannel-lined sleeping bag with bear noises outside.

“Pappa, if you lived in the city how did you hear mountain lions at night?” I asked. My grandfather peered at me over the tops of his glasses. We were both silent, our conversation about banjo music seemed to have been left on some beautiful mountain on the other side of the continental divide. Pappa answered slowly, “By that time we had moved closer to town and our house was near the city zoo.”

All my life my grandfather has given me stories. The stories I liked best were the ones his banjo told. When he wasn’t playing his banjo he was growing things in the garden. His backyard was the only childhood home I’d ever known that hadn’t gone away. He took care of me when my mom was sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, and I was one, two and three. My mom and my dad were good parents, as good as teenagers trying to grow up with a baby can be.

In my mind today I am again with my grandfather, eating extra sharp cheddar cheese, black licorice and reliving the time he stayed with me for a week. Buttoning Pappa’s shirt for him when his fingers wouldn't close around the buttons. Days and days of rodeo watching and drinking Dr. Pepper so that I can keep up with my eighty-five year old grandfather.

While I am folding laundry Pappa asks, “Honey do you remember that book you liked so much when you were little?” By now I’m already rummaging through the bookshelves, searching for an old book with yellow pages. Pappa clears his throat, his voice is rough with an eighth grade education, yet he is a good reader and for the last time he reads to me. And when the story ends, he pulls out his banjo and plays for me.

First published in The Raven Chronicles: A Journal of Art, Literature and the Spoken Word Sound Track Series

Three Sections from MY LIFE

I received a long-awaited phone call from my social worker. But before I answered the phone I had one of those knowing-feelings and knew it would be the adoption agency telling me about my soon-to-be child.

Then on a crisp morning in Seoul, Korea, a wide-eyed baby was readied to leave his homeland. Dressed in a pink bunting to keep out the winter chill, one-year-old Kook Yung was carried aboard Korean Airlines, and he set off for a new life; adoption in the United States.

When the plane landed in California, Kook Yung was placed in my arms, and I felt awareness deeper than the ocean, grasping the loss his first mother endured. That boy became my son, Jay. The one who would later pick purple and yellow wild flowers for me, and bestowed me with the title of adoptive parent and the pleasure of being his mother.

. . .

We had three kids. First I gave birth to our daughter and our son was placed with us as a one-year old with special needs from Korea. Then we added a third child to our family who came to us from foster care at age ten. When we decided to add more children to our family we wanted to make a difference in this life by parenting children who were already born, waiting, and needing a family. We wanted kids that were considered hard to place because deep down inside I knew adopting children who were waiting to be matched with parents was my calling in life. When I shared this with my husband he said, “I've got that same feeling.” Then we tortured ourselves by examining and delving into the myriads of types of special needs placements we wanted to pursue. We wanted a child with a special need, but we only wanted to take a small risk.

Looking back, I can see that our thinking was pretty much the same as those who claim they only want to parent a “healthy child.” We wanted to believe that it was possible to be in control of the outcome. We wanted to chart our future and to be able to map out our children’s medical conditions. But when I gave birth to my first child we were open to receiving our baby in whatever form he or she was delivered into this world with. Why then when it came to foster care or adoption did we insist on only children who would carry a medical label that felt minor and easy for us to handle?

Today if I were to bring another child into my family, I'd like to believe I would welcome the opportunity to consider all types of special needs, instead of only those requiring corrective surgery. Now I’d consider receiving a child with a host of unknowns, because the unexpected special medical need our son developed much later on, that we did not choose, which we would have given anything to avoid, has reshaped me, chiseled off my rough edges and softened me, made me better, and filled me with tender grace. But back then I was looking for a guarantee that my children would have only minor health issues.

After nearly a year of waiting, finally the call came and we received a referral for a one-year-old boy in Korea who was born with Syndactyly. His fingers on both hands were joined together, bones and all, making his hands look like small mittens. Might this child be right for our family? We wanted this child and we began to do medical research to familiarize ourselves with what this condition would mean. While we considered what might be ahead health-wise for our child to be, our good friend, Bruce, who is blind and lost his eyesight as a young adult, yet went on to become an outstanding wood craftsman and cabinet maker, kept telling us he had a strong feeling this was going to be one of those things we looked back on as no big deal, and that our little boy was going to be fine.

And when my son was placed in my arms, immediately I understood something was far beyond ordinary about him. He was calm and centered in a way that let you know he possessed a great amount of wisdom; his presence made skeptics believe in angels.

There was something extraordinary about the trauma that surrounded Jay’s early life and how he eased his way through it. He endured the first syndactyly-release surgery when he was eighteen months old, and the process involved skin grafting, with grafts taken from the soft skin near his groin area. Every few months he underwent another surgery to separate another finger, and by the time he was five, he had ten individual fingers. Granted they were misshapen and scared. But he had fingers. Fingers that he could now stuff into gloves, or a baseball mitt, which delighted him, and he found his own way of making his new fingers work perfectly for his needs.

Turned out Bruce was right. The condition that caused Jay to be placed with us as “Special Needs” when we adopted him, turned out to be hugely unimportant. We’d managed to have an easy outcome, just like we set out to do in the beginning. It breaks my heart, however, knowing that if my son had congenital heart disease, or a host of other diagnosis, or if I had looked into my crystal ball, chances are we would have been frightened off, and might not have adopted him, causing me to miss out on having him for my son and some of the best years of my life as a mother.

The truth is before we adopted Jay I did look into my crystal ball, or rather I went to the hilltop and I got real quiet, and what I knew for certain was that if we adopted this baby, it would be wonderful, better than anything I could ever imagine, and that his life circle would be small. Within a slip of a moment I could feel my joy and pain braided together, and I knew that I was meant to take this journey. When I know something, I know. But how could I know? As a young child I discovered that often I feel things, and I know.

With my vision tucked into the recesses of my mind, for the next six years I enjoyed a blissful, wonderful motherhood, joyous beyond measure. Then suddenly ours life changed forever. I learned that 7-year-old Jay had a brain tumor.

Following surgery, radiation, and then chemo, the cancer went into remission and the brain tumor was gone, and stayed gone for much longer than the doctors had initially predicted. Each time Jay had an MRI, the scan came back perfectly clear. He was back to snorkeling at the beach, and he looked healthy, if fragile. And on the head of a pin we delighted in eight more wonderful years, joyous beyond measure. And then the tumor came back, and Jay died at age 15.

Following my son's death, I felt the way Mt. St. Helens looked ten years after her summit was removed by a volcanic eruption. I stood under an evening sky watching the slate blue dusk blend into ragged peaks and lava domes.

A friend once had a cabin perched on a bluff overlooking the lake, surrounded by gigantic pines, and now fireweed and purple-red flowers dotted the level earthen floor, in a place where a forest once stood. My son Jay, a pole star of my life, had passed. I knew I would never get over it. Nor would I ever be the same. And I would not give up or given in to societies mistaken notion of getting over grief. I’d find a way to learn to live with it and not allow it to hold me back.

I walked, circling the crater, and saw wild violets blooming. The mountain had been scattered and sundered into bits, and she survived. I swallow a clotty grief deep inside my throat. A grief so wide it gives me laryngitis. Bold and enthusiastic thoughts of my son Jay filled me.

I shuffled out into the empty field of my mind to find enough words to make it through another winter of writing. My life has changed into something I didn’t want, and I began gathering the pieces that were left of me, coaxing them back into growth, and starting again, but like the mountain I’d lost all of my big trees.

I felt myself a part of the mountain, with hills catching the sunset through a furious wind, dust devils kicking up dirt. All my senses became alive, out on the edge. I imagined fireweed blooming on the burned over land in my heart with tiny purple petals, and it was a beginning.

That was in 1999. Like a river stone tumbling in the raging water, my grief has grown softer, and I found gold along the way, but I had to reach for it. If I had the chance to do it over again, I would choose to be Jay’s mother and take this journey again. Everyday I thank my lucky stars. Out of this has come an unimagined gift. Loving Jay with all my heart and soul, and having to let go, gives me the faith to open my arms and embrace each moment. The special need Jay came to this earth with—was to spread his love wide.