Thoughts on the Puzzle of Being Adopted and Abandoning/Claiming the Baby

I have the thought that I need to find a full-length photograph of myself and have it made into a puzzle so I can put the pieces together. I so yearn to hear and feel the click of each piece that it manifests as a deep ache in my arms and the feeling that my prefrontal cortex has fallen away and that my brain is, just, uh, open. It’s the weirdest feeling. Like I’m both here and not here. Like I’m a store that’s open for business, but I have no idea what I sell. Like my head is directly connected to the universe with no wall of brain to separate us.

Maybe this is how a baby feels when it’s born. Like, What the fuck. A minute ago I was in the dark and held, and now here I am in this blinding light and there is so much going on and so much to feel. Can you imagine the speed at which the brain has to process these changes? Hands touching your skin for the first time ever. Breathing in air, exhaling air. The cord you used to hang onto to feel the pulse, gone. The liquid world, gone. The soft walls, gone. And what the hell was that crazy transition? Why was the doorway so goddamn small? I mean, hello? Why did I have to feel like I was going to die to get here? What kind of life is this, anyway? Who thought this was a good idea?

At least I’m not a caterpillar, I guess. At least I didn’t have to dissolve and lose all my little legs and cute little caterpillar body. At least I didn’t have to grow wings and pray to god they unfold and work.

At least I’m not a rock.  

But, actually, being a rock might be super cool. One long period of rest and not having to cut your hair or nails or brush your teeth. Yeah. Next time I’d like to be a rock, if that’s possible. I don’t even care how big I am or where I am. I don’t even care if I’m the only rock around. I won’t have feelings. I can just be. God damn that would be a relief.

So back to the puzzle. I have spent so long trying to figure out who I am and to have a sense of safety and belonging by trying to write my story in a way that will help my brain make sense of my life. My brain keeps asking, But what happened? How did I end up here? Who am I? Am I okay? Will all people leave? Why aren’t I more charmed by myself? Why don’t I like most people? Why aren’t I more excited about this opportunity to live this life? What’s wrong with me? It’s like my brain is a windshield, and it knows it can see what’s in front of it clearly because it has had glimpses of clarity, of awe, of belonging. It knows what it’s like to bear witness and enjoy the view, but it has shit all over it, so mostly all it can see is the shit, so that’s what it talks about, that’s what keeps it from relaxing into the relationship between it and what’s in front of it, around it. The shit of dead bugs and dust and limiting beliefs and negativity bias and misguided thinking.

What if I had two puzzles to put together? One of me, and one of what I see right now when I look up from the computer—plants, earth, driveway, car, tractor, telephone wires, birds, a white moth? What if I focus on these two things: my body and what is around me? What if I breath into the focus of here I am in these clicking pieces and here is what I can see. Click. Click. Click. Thoughts want to rush in. They want to take over, steer the ship. They want to think they are in control. But when I listen to the thoughts, I stop hearing the birds. I miss the spectacle of creation.

It’s as if the person I love most in the world, my daughter, comes into the room with something she is bursting to tell me, and just as she starts to speak, to share, I turn the radio on super loud. I can see her mouth move, but all I can here are the words blaring from the radio.

Soon she will deflate. Soon she will walk out of the room, and I will be left with the radio and I will have missed…life.

I think so much of my life has been spent being distracted by the radio of my mind as it tries to put together a story that will keep me safe. I’m like a mother with ear buds in while her baby tries to be heard. Only it’s my body that is my baby. My body has been talking to me all my life. It has feelings.

When you are relinquished and adopted, your feelings can be hurdles between you and feeling like you fit in, like you aren’t too much. Ignoring the body is one way of moving through a situation that upsets your mind and guts and nervous system. Learning to focus on the radio instead of the body is a way just to make it through the day.

But the body, like a child, can only stand to be ignored for so long. We have bodies so we can be in relationship, it seems to me. Isn’t that the whole point of our time here? To have the experience of being energy in a body in a world with other bodies?

When our culture says it’s fine to separate a mother and a child, when our culture does not understand how attachment and relationship work, you’ve got a real mess. I’ve spent my entire life untangling this misunderstanding of what makes humans flourish as humans, and this journey has led me in a giant loop back to the baby, me, the body, my body, that was alone in space for a period of time without a mother.

I’m here to claim you, body. I’m here to rewrite the story of what happened. I’m here to see you, to see the pieces of you, and to put them together. I want to see you, whole. I want to hear the pieces of you connect. I want to feel the pieces of me connect, to myself, to what calls to me in the world.

We come out of the cave of the mother to learn what it means to click. She holds us in her arms, and we learn to feel, Oh, this, this is new, this steadies my heart, this allows me to close my eyes, to sleep, to open my eyes, to see.

What didn’t happen 61 years ago, I believe, I can provide for myself in so many ways now. The experience of clicking within myself and with others has become my new sport, my new obsession. What does it feel like to be in relationship with that open door, with that statue of the Buddha, with that marigold plant, with Bird, with the farmer walking out of his house? Again and again, I pull my attention from the chatter of the radio to the sensations of my body. How do you like this, baby? How does this make you feel? And this? And what about this?

You are a boat that feels everything, while steering towards joy.

Safe travels.