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Perfect Moment Monday: Blog life meets real life

June has been a month of convergence between my two lives, the virtual one and the face-to-face one.

Loch Tess: To welcome the month, reader Caitlin and her adorable son, Sam, invited the children and me to spend the afternoon on her pontoon. Tessa and Reed swam in the lake and, thrill of thrills, they each got to pilot the boat. Caitlin and I chatted happily, snacked and enjoyed the first day of summer break (there may or may not have been a red Solo cup of white wine involved). The combination of friendship, 75°  weather (no wind),  and well-behaved children made Caitlin and me realize we were having a perfect moment.

Double treat: A few weeks later I got to meet my Twitter friend, Karen.We met for the noblest of reasons — to try out the desserts at the restaurant of the Denver Art Museum (thanks to the recommendation of dessert blog SugarLoco.com). Our children got along well and Karen and I gave each other the happy look when the three of them headed to the gift shop together (our daughters are the same age). Karen is a mom via adoption and a spinner, a fiber artist — hence the references to spider and Arachne in her online identity. It was fun to put a face to her Twitter wit, and I hope we get a chance to get together again.

Three corners: Last week I got to meet adoption-reform bloggers Peach and Cassi. One was coming through town and the other lives in town. I was a bit nervous — as I always am when meeting people from other corners of the adoption triad — but also excited because these are women I’ve long respected for their viewpoints and thoughtful treatment of people and issues.

Me, Cassi, Peach

One thing that came up during our dinner is that members of the triad can have such a hard time putting themselves in another’s shoes. How can a birth parent who was told “it’s best for your child” (and had to believe it for self-protection reasons) really face the loss that said child may feel? How can an adoptee understand the overwhelming desire an infertile person has to become a parent (unless, of course, she has experienced it)? How can an adoptive parent understand the feast that is an unexpected pregnancy when all she knows is famine?

And we must add in the other permutations of understanding — the adult adoptee understanding the viewpoint of the birth parent, the adoptive parent seeing through adult adoptee eyes, the birth parent walking in the infertile person’s shoes. Our familiarity and entrenchment in our own corner of the triangle can keep us from grasping the complexities of the adoption mosaic.  This is probably why we sometimes yell at each other.

What made our dinner so amazing was that we three were listening, understanding, and learning from one another. It was refreshingly affirming. I left Peach and Cassi feeling exhilarated. I can’t wait to see them again. Maybe at a future Adoptee Rights Demonstration.

June has been a very rich month, indeed.

~~~~~

Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.

On the last Monday of each month we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join. The next Perfect Moment Monday event will begin July 30.

To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:

  1. Follow Write Mind Open Heart.
  2. Between the Sunday night before and the Sunday night after, write up your own Perfect Moment and post.
  3. Use LinkyTools below to enter your name (or blog name) and the URL of your Perfect Moment.
  4. Visit the Perfect Moments of others and let the writers know you were there with some comment currency.

Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.Perfect Moment MondayWhat Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Visit these moments of others and share your comment love.

25 Responses

  1. I met two bloggers this weekend, too!  And there may have been strawberry cream scones involved.  😉    I’m glad that this was such a rewarding month!

  2. I really enjoyed your thoughts about the difficulty of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. While extremely applicable to adoption the sentiments reach much further. Wish there were more conversations like that going on about so many issues. 

  3. Those do sound like some perfect moments. I can totally imagine being there in that first one – I miss spending my summers on a lake!

  4. I get to meet a FB first mother next month as well. I admire and respect @Linda Orozco . She goes into a CA prison weekly and encourages the women inmates. The reason we are planning a get together is so meaningful and relevant, especially considering the news lately. I was asked by another one of my FB writer friends if I could help her find  homes for her  memoir book on sexual abuse. I have 4 boxes sitting in my front room :). Both Linda and I are presently reading @Karen Rabbitt’s book and the ladies in prison are looking forward to reading her life story as well. Even if at times, when I still feel like a wounded spirit from my own adoption that did not go well, I’ve found that my friends from all parts of the adoption triad have truly enriched my life in ways I would have never expected. 

    1.  @jbwriter  @Linda  @Karen I know you will enjoy meeting Linda. I hope you and I have the pleasure of meeting each other someday! Like maybe today — your weather sounds divine compared to here 🙂

  5. I am the Caitlin of the first post – it was such a great day! I feel truly honored to be included in your post.
     
    With respect to the question of putting oneself in the adoption triad into the shoes of another person in the triad, I just realized as I was reading that I have an easier time feeling like I can imagine the feelings of the birth mother must feel than I do getting my head around the emotions that come with being an adoptee.  Do other people feel that they can “get” certain parts of the triad more than other parts?

    1. I feel like I almost overempathize with birthmothers probably because I AM a mom now so I in a certain way I can see how hard it would be to let go of your child. I have this odd feeling that actually my son will be totally fine. It’s the rest of us who wrestle with what adoption means. Interesting.

      1. I wonder if resilience is also a combination of nature vs nurture…? I tend to think that my kids are going to weather it all well, too. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking or hubris, but I hope not.

    2. For me, it’s come in stages. I was able to see through Crystal’s eyes first, and now that my children are tweens (and very much their own people, able to communicate their viewpoints) I am getting better at seeing things through their lenses.
       
      Good observation!
       
      So enjoyed our day together :-).

  6. Now those are some definite perfect moments.  Isn’t it amazing when our online world collides (in a good way of course) with our “real” world.
     
    It sounds like you have had some wonderful moments.

  7. So awesome to meet bloggy friends! I will be meeting a few this summer and I can’t wait! Definitely a whole bunch of perfect moments.

      1.  @LavenderLuz Our virtual friendship has been going for so long, it’s about time to have a face-to-face.  I look forward to meeting you, hopefully this summer.

  8. First off, thanks so much for the Sugar Loco shout out!  Wasn’t that exhibit amazing (and the dessert too!)?  Also, so awesome when you can connect IRL with people and it feels like you already know them.  Perfect moments 🙂

  9. Aw!  It was great to meet you guys in person!  Definitely worth fighting the anxiety monster to get there.  The chocolate was pretty good too. 😀

  10. I love love when I meet bloggers I have seen only on fb, on a blog, or in twitter… everyone looks different IRL too – so cool – I need to start doing the Perfect Moment Mondays again… I miss writing.

  11. I’m always so nervous when meeting online friends for the first time, but almost every single time, I realize there was no need to be nervous! It’s so great when we get to meet those who have touched our lives…it sounds like you all had a wonderful time together!

  12. I didn’t know you knew Karen!  She’s been in the blogosphere a loooooooooooooong time.  I know I read her old blog (which is long gone) back in 2006. 

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