Time Travel and the Trip Back

Time Travel and the Trip Back

Sometimes I find it really hard to get my head wrapped around how time keeps marching on. Most days I don't feel any different than I did in my younger days. Oh, there's the occasional morning that I wake up all achy and can hardly get out of bed because I have overdone it a bit at the gym or tried something new and suddenly discover that I have muscles in places I never really knew I had them. By usually, at least in my head, the passing of time is sort of irrelevant.

Then there are those moments that will jarringly snap me back and make me realize that time is not at a standstill and in fact it is whizzing by at lightening speed. Often this time travel involves birthdays - not mine of course, those are just a number to me, sort of like the ones on a scale - but those of say a now teenaged child (how the hell did that happen?!) or the anniversary of a death. It has been over nine years since my father died. In some ways it seems like yesterday; in others, like an eternity.

My dad was not a religious man, but he was a deeply spiritual man. He saw god and beauty in the trees and the birds, in the mountains and lakes. And in simple acts of kindness. He was a modern-day Frost, Audubon, Thoreau, Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, all rolled into one. He didn't need to walk into a church every weekend to prove his goodness. He proved that everyday to those who had the good fortunate to know him. He had nature to justify his existence and his purpose on this earth. And that was good enough for him. In many ways, he was timeless.

One of my favorite things about my dad was that when he went somewhere, anywhere, he never went and came back the same way.  I think that he did that because he saw beauty and goodness where most of us don't even bother to look. He always just enjoyed the ride and the view. I like to imagine that when he died he took an interesting trip back, to a peaceful place where dreams and eagles soar - a beautiful place that is worthy of the beautifulest of souls. And that he saw amazing things along the way.

On my first trip to Burning Man, I took with me my dad's ashes and the ashes of my dear friend Abby. I hoped that it would be a way for me to try to let go of some grief that I had been holding onto for way too long. The morning that I spread my dad's ashes at the temple was a spectacularly beautiful morning, as most are out on the playa. I wrote my message to my dad on the temple, scattered ashes, and then sat in the dust and cried, letting go of so much pain. It was like time was standing still and whizzing by at the same time.

At some point, as I sat there amongst the dust and ashes, I looked up and through tear-filled eyes I saw the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, standing in a purple velvet dress and hat. She looked to me like a time traveler of sorts. She smiled softly, walked over to me, knelt down, and put her arms around me. She held me while I wept some more. I don't know how long she stayed with me and at that point time was irrelevant anyway. We never spoke. She just held me while I let go of so very much that needed to go in my life. And when the right moment came, she knew it, and she stood and walked away in a different direction from which she had come.

The Yin and Yang of Motherhood

The Yin and Yang of Motherhood: All roads lead to happiness

Once again in my life, I find myself damn lucky. My pre-baby nine months were spent simply waiting. No morning sickness, no poking and prodding by a doctor, no tests, no weight gain, no cravings. Just waiting. It was somewhat ironic that, at the time we adopted our first child, the timeline from when your adoption dossier was submitted in China until you received your match of a child was about nine months. I can’t imagine bearing the five year plus ordeal that people do now waiting for their match to come – that is hard labor. So when my husband occasionally still asks if I want to go back one more time, which is usually prompted by a friend making the now long-awaited journey, my answer is no thank you. I no longer have the luxury of time, the extravagance of just waiting. 

I don’t really know if my experience was different from having a biological child – I have never given birth so I have no true means of comparison – but I can unequivocally say that the moment that tiny little Chinese baby was placed in my arms was the most beautiful moment of my life. Our first daughter was so very delicate and beautiful and helpless, and I was a mom for the first time, her mom. She was healthy, but because her time in this world so far had been spent in an orphanage she was developmentally nowhere near her almost nine months of age. That or perhaps she was merely scared to death having no idea who this strange creature was who looked nothing like her. She hardly moved at all, just blinking as she stared at me with eyes so black I felt like I could see her soul in them. Even then, her eyes seemed to be so full of time and wisdom; I have always said that she was born forty years old. She has proven that to me time and again. And yet that first time she looked at me, she seemed to look up with this simple question in her eyes, “Where have you been all my life?” It moved me like nothing before or since. 

The second time around was very different. That baby wanted nothing to do with me or her dad, but sometime within the first 24 hours she determined that he was in fact the best choice of the two evils that fate had presented her and she spent the next two weeks in China as his personal shadow. If that had been my first experience with motherhood, I'm not sure there would have been another. As it was, I sort of enjoyed the fact that it was him for a change who could not take a shower without someone wailing at the bathroom door. It certainly made that glass of wine somehow sweeter as I just sat back and watched the drama unfold. When we were back at home with her, though, I cried all day the first three days after he went back to work because that was all she did. I don’t really know how we made it through those days or even the coming few years, for that matter, which proved to be quite a challenge. She was the daredevil – the one I would find in the middle of the dining room table or pinning the dog against the floor or eating the 3-day old chicken nugget she had stashed in her carseat. And yet, that child has grown to steal my heart. I foresee her stealing lots of hearts before she is done. She is a charmer, she wears her heart on her sleeve, she knows what she likes, and she goes for it. Perhaps we have more in common than I originally thought. 

Those two girls are quite different, always have been, and yet they are closer than most sisters I know. They compliment, support, and love each other in truly amazing ways; they are clearly soul mates. They are yin and yang. They have grown into remarkable young ladies that I couldn't be more proud of.  I know that the different path to motherhood that I took brought together two people who were meant to be together and it likewise made me exactly what I was meant to be in life - their mom. Thank you Destiny. You nailed this one.