China Day Six - City of Gold and Dust

We left this morning at 7am for the airport to fly to Taiyuan in Shanxi province.  We arrived at the airport in good time and things went smoothly until we checked our bags.  The kids have been accosted by street vendors at every turn, so I finally bought each of them ONE item (call me a tyrant).  Reilly got a red parasol and Sharon got a fan,  both indicative of Chinese culture and beauty, while Matt and Paul were curiously determined to buy metal, gun shaped key chains---I think they were in the shape of miniature AK-47s. These have absolutely nothing to do with China, but they were under $5 each, so I didn’t complain.  The boys put the guns in their checked luggage which set off the scanners before we even got our tickets.  After the woman dug through our luggage we got a chance to explain to her that we are really loving people, and very safe to have on any plane, it’s just that we have a thing for weaponry. 

The flight was fine (just an hour) and thankfully unremarkable, but the city is amazing.  We were told that there was wealth here, because it is a center of coal and energy, but I didn’t expect this.  There is construction all over and the landscape is flat, so you can see really far.  They are building massive high rise apartment complexes with apartment buildings that are at least fifty stories tall with floor to ceiling bay windows, balconies and penthouses. Each complex has roughly 10 to 15 buildings.  The whole place is just massive, new and wildly opulent.  The streets are wide (this is wonderful after Beijing, which can give you a closed in feeling) and there are lanes for bikes and wide sidewalks on both sides of the roads, separated by rows of ornamental trees.  There is extensive landscaping everywhere and the cars are all high end.  It’s almost like being on a Hollywood movie set of futuristic America. 

The only drawback is the air pollution.  It’s horrible.  I’ve been in China for a week now and I have yet to see the sun, or white clouds against a blue sky.  It is just grey overcast all day and the sun is a shimmering, undefined glow against a grey background.  All the cars have a thick layer of dust on them and there is a grey/brown haze everywhere.  In Beijing, it was pollution and fog, but here it is pollution and dust. The wind blows all the time and you can feel stuff hitting against your skin.  It’s almost like I would imagine Kansas during the dust bowl.   Nick and Brenda, who came to visit us on Thursday, said that most Americans only last a few years here and then they go back to the states for health reasons.  I can well believe this.  As nice as the city is to be in, few American’s would ever last long here because of the muck in the air.

We checked into our hotel and went for a walk to find lunch.  The guide had warned us that people would stare more here than they did in Beijing.  Wow.  We definitely attract attention.  Bill made the comment that if we don’t do something about Reilly’s hair, she is going to cause an accident.   I think he is right.  They glance in our direction and zero right in on that blonde hair of hers.  The heads turn and stay looking at us as the cars/mopeds/bikes keep sailing past. 

We had directions to a pizza hut, but the line was so long, we didn’t even bother.   There was a KFC next door and it was also jam packed with people but at least we could get into the door.  This KFC had two floors of tables and a play place, but alas, the glorious influence of the modern world has still not reached Chinese plumbers.  All the bathrooms were squatty pottys.  I hate those things. 

Across the street from KFC, there was a massive stone wall and waterfall that was about four stories high.  We went to check it out after lunch and found a huge park.  There was a winding path that went uphill to what I call a Textle (this is a temple, filled with teens, all texting), then led back behind the stone waterfall to a zoo and a park next to a lake.  We could see some rides from an amusement park in the distance. 

The kids were tired, and Reilly was starting to lose her cool from all the gaping stares so we finally turned around, found a grocery store and headed back to the hotel.  Bill and I slept, but the kids turned on the TV for the first time since we came to China. 

Tomorrow we get Qing Bei and I am worried.  I thought she was in an orphanage, but the guide told me that she has a foster family and they really love her.  This is good for the long term, because she will have experience bonding and trusting people, but it will be horrible for the short term.  I can’t imagine being in a family and then being picked up and moved to another family, just like that.  Then I think of the poor foster mom, handing off a baby to a perfect stranger…. 

Pray for me.  I’m about to go traumatize some kindly Chinese. 

China Day Five—Despite a Full Day of Touring, Bill and I Remain Happily Married

 So, this morning, we met four other families in this group who are also adopting.  Two of us had been trying to get special needs kids from the beginning, but the other three couples all mentioned that they had been waiting four years (or more) for healthy babies and finally decided to switch to special needs kids.  Once they did, they were all matched right away.  It’s a bizarre sign that China is catching on about what a bad idea it is to get rid of all their girls.  We see a LOT of boy babies/toddlers.  We see girls also, but not as many.  It’s just hard to get over the blatant irony of a whole country, so enamored with men that they kill their daughters to the point that their sons don‘t have anyone to marry.    ...talk about twisted love!

Anyway, today was a day of tours with the adoption agency.  We all got on a bus at 8am and headed for the Great Wall.  It was amazing, but very, very crowded.  Honestly, the first half of the walk was just wall to wall people.   Luckily, our family is in decent shape, so we could climb past the crowds to get to the less crowded places.  The stairs are steep and uneven and worn from years and years of walking.  It’s neat to step on stone stairs that are worn down from use. There is not a lot to see (It is, after all, a WALL), but it is big and impressive because of its age and vast size (more than, say, high quality or details in construction).  So, most of the morning, for me, was spent counting my kids heads and fighting with Bill. 

Let me just say before I go into this that my husband is a marvelous man with many, many wonderful, endearing qualities.  However, there are situations in which he just loses his head and has undeniable blind spots.  For example, I’ve written about “The Travelling A” before (see The Wife Olympics from November 2010).  He also hits what I call “Speed Mode.”  Whenever there is both empty space before him and an opportunity to move forward, he forgets everything else and just zooms off like a bumble bee headed for God knows what.  Bill certainly doesn’t know.  He just becomes possessed with a desire to move forward quickly and he CAN NOT be stopped.  To make matters worse, his idea of waiting is to remain still until the slower faction is within about a ten feet radius and then zoom off again, yelling behind his back, “What? I waited!” while we finally sit down to rest.  This would be fine, if he only would acknowledge it and stop convincing himself that “daddy running off” is somehow a form of family bonding.   

The result on this day was that Bill zoomed off with our two teenage boys (aged 14 and 15), leaving me fighting the crowds while herding Reilly and Sharon (aged 9 and 12) who kept on trudging along at their 9 year old girl pace, watching their father get smaller and smaller with the distance and asking why daddy didn’t wait for them.  How does one answer this? 

In the section that we were walking, the Great Wall is about twenty feet off the ground with high sides, like you see in the pictures, and steps that vary in height from three inches to about eighteen inches.   On the steep parts, poor Sharon was practically climbing.   There are square, stone houses about 1/8 of a mile apart all along the wall and 80% of the crowd was just walking to the first stone house and turning around.  Just past this first house,  I finally yelled loudly enough for Bill to catch on that his life was in danger.  He stopped and when we finally caught up to him he looked at me like I was a corrupt race official and asked what the problem was?  Rather than explain it,  I just nodded to Paul and Matt, who actually had some idea about what was going on, and declared that Daddy was going to walk with Sharon and Reilly now and Mommy was going to go ahead with the boys.    We zoomed off together before Bill could get two words out.

I have to say, this was really fun.  On occasions like this, Daddy is the safe parent, so Reilly and Sharon were more than happy to be with Bill and I was free to run off.  The boys and I are more evenly matched speed wise so we hung together and I had a really nice time glancing back and watching Bill patiently herding the girls up the stairs.  Of course, we waited for them at each of the stone houses and zoomed off toward the next one once Daddy reached the required ten foot radius.   This was purposeful, deliberate revenge on my part and I fully stand behind all my actions on this occasion.  I’d say it was a highlight of the trip for me. 

After a while, the girls had enough climbing so we stopped, took a family picture and then Bill and I debated who was going to go ahead with the boys and who would go back with the girls.  While we were discussing this (as well as Bill’s completely unjustified comment about throwing me over the wall), the kids went off into a corner and came back declaring that Daddy was going ahead and I was going back.  Reilly had flipped a coin and it was decided, best out of three. 

A few other dads from our tour group had caught up to us and asked if they could join Bill and the boys.  Matt, who demonstrated a remarkable amount of situational awareness actually waited for them to gather their things while Bill zoomed off with Paul.  Matt looked at me and asked, “Why doesn’t he just wait?”  I told him it was a birth defect and I was proud of him for overcoming his gene pool and waiting for the group. 

We gathered back at the bus and then drove to a restaurant where we had lunch, a short sales pitch at a jade factory and then we headed back to Beijing for Tianenmen square and the Forbidden City.   Like the first section of the Great Wall, these were so crowded, it was impossible to do anything more than simply count children.  We both went into Protection Mode. Luckily, Bill was back to his wonderful, normal self and stayed behind the group the entire time.  I don’t think he lost sight of any of us even once. 

Rather than go back to the room with the tour, Bill suggested we go to a few temples/parks that he had found on his morning runs.  The kids weren’t too happy about this, but man, it was lovely.  There are a few huge lakes in the middle of the city and they have done a tremendous job with landscaping around them.  There were these really cool round boats you could rent (almost like the huge inner tubes you ride at amusement parks) with tent like roofs and tables in the middle for snacks or cards that seemed to be just floating along.  There was a beautiful columned walkway all along the edge of the lake and temples and benches everywhere. 

Unfortunately, the subway was much farther off than we realized and we didn’t get back to the hotel until sunset.  We all collapsed for a while and then Bill left and came back with McDonalds for all of us.  This is what I mean about Bill’s wonderful, normal self.  What other husband would even KNOW about those parks, let alone revel in walking through them with the kids, get us back to the hotel through a foreign subway system and then, after a morning run and another ten hours of walking, run and get us dinner?   I would have easily let my kids starve until morning without hesitation or remorse. 

So, that was pretty much our day.  We spent most of it counting our children’s heads  –that, and watching them get their pictures taken with complete strangers.  We tried to make a game out of this and give the kids a quarter for each photo op, but there were so many, we eventually lost track.  I’ll never understand what is up with that, but let me just say, despite what Obama thinks, American’s are pretty darn popular. 

China Day Four - A Few Complimentary Tours I Would Have Missed On My Own

So, today was Friday, May 17^th.

The kids are still jet lagged.  They all fell asleep Thursday evening at 5pm and could NOT be woken up.  They slept until midnight, when they woke me up to tell me they could NOT go back to sleep.   Thankfully, I have brought the best work of fiction ever written along on this trip and so I read out loud to them and we generally goofed off until about 3am when we all went back to sleep until 6am. 

The book is called The Once and Future King (about King Arthur of Great Britain) and if you know me well, then I have been telling you to read it.  Last night, we read this bit about sports:  “…Merlyn grumbled about athletics, saying that nowadays people seemed to think that you were an educated man if you could knock another man off a horse with a bit of stick and that the craze for games was the ruin of scholarship. …’The trouble with the Norman Aristocracy,’ exclaimed Merlyn hotly,  ‘is that they are games-mad.  That’s what it is, games-mad.’  …But Sir Ector, who was an old tilting blue said that the battle of Crecy had been won upon the playing fields of Camelot.  This made Merlyn so furious that he gave Sir Ector rheumatism for two nights running before he relented.”

This quote is relevant because Bill (my husband) asked me to go running with him Friday morning.  Bill is games-mad.  I think he has signed up for more than 20 triathlons this year and he is currently working on getting his mile time down to under 6 minutes, 30 seconds in the 5k.  He’s extended the scope of his mania to include me and so I finally told him I would do four triathlons per year (but no more) and I have been faithfully attempting to share his joy.  Bill is thrilled about this.  Had I grown a third breast, I don’t think he could be happier with me, as his wife, than he is over these triathlons.

I told him I could do three miles comfortably, four with little pain and six was my absolute limit. Of course, we went six.  It was actually really nice.  With the crowds and the uneven pavement, he really couldn’t get too far ahead of me.  I only had to ask him to wait once (this is a record for us) and we saw a LOT of the city.  We went from the Poly Plaza, which is our hotel, to the outside wall of the Forbidden city, then through Coal Hill park and back to the hotel.  At one point, we hit an open air market that was so crowded we had to walk the whole way through it.  I can’t post the pictures yet, because they are on Bill’s phone, but I will try to get to them later.  You can more or less find our route on Google –earth, although I can’t find it myself, because Google is the new Forbidden City over here. 

After a shower and the hotel breakfast we met our guide for a complimentary tour of the hutongs.  I feel terrible about this.  She wanted to do this for us because she missed us at the airport and she said it was her custom.   The adoption agency also wrote and told us to accept her offer of the tour, so of course, we did, but I hate that she felt compelled to do so much.  Ironically, missing her at the airport turned out to be the best thing for us because we had an incredible day.  She took us to the drum tower, the bell tower, a tea house with a formal Chinese tea ceremony, a rickshaw tour through the hutongs, and a visit inside one of the hutong houses.  This was really cool.

These are the drums at the top of the drum tower. They used them to mark time.  They are LOUD.

These are the stairs going up the drum/bell towers.  They felt great after that morning run.

This is a view from the rickshaw, of another rickshaw.

Another view of the Hutongs from the rickshaw.

The Hutongs are a very old (700 years old) part of the city.  She told us they make up about 10% of the real-estate in Beijing.  The houses are small, unattached buildings with separate rooms for a living room, a bedroom and a kitchen.  Since they are so old, there is no plumbing so there are public toilets all over the hutongs.  Each block has at least one.  The streets are tight, almost alleyways, and you don’t see windows because there is a sort of central courtyard for each housing unit that the rooms look into. 

Our guide had to leave about noon, so we ate at a McDonalds, took a walk to Coal Hill with the kids this time and went up the hill to see the Forbidden City.  After that, everyone was exhausted, so we took the subway home (our friends taught us how to use them) and everyone was asleep by 5pm, again.  This time, Bill and I woke the kids up from 6 to 8 pm so hopefully, they will sleep until morning and we’ll be closer to China time. 

This is a map of the subway station we were in.  Note the irony of marking "You Are Here" in English, while leaving the names of the subways in Chinese.

On Saturday, we see the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.  I never did get signed up for the 7k race on the Great Wall.  I supposed it would never have worked with the tour for Saturday already scheduled.  I am sad about this, but I recognize that it's a little absurd to complain.   

China Day Two and Three - How I Lost a Wednesday

So, we landed in China at 2pm on Wednesday, May 15, 2013.  Our agency told us there would be a guide at the gate waiting for us, holding a green sign with the name of their agency and our name.  We got through baggage claim and customs just fine, but after that, there is a long Walk of Chaos separating you from the Exit.  This consists of a 200 yard fence with rows and rows of people leaning against it and crammed about ten feet back, all holding signs with names of hotels or conferences or businesses or last names or whatever identifying information they can use to find their target. 

Everyone. Stared.  

We had to stare back, because we were looking for the green sign with our name on it, so we all got lots of eye contact.  It’s a great introduction to the country.  By the end of the fence, you just want to run. 

Once we got out of the walkway, we wheeled our suitcases to the middle of the entrance hall and paused for breath.  There were a few moments there where we were all a little rumpled.  After a 13 hour flight, jet lag, funky food (already) and no one meeting us at the gate, we felt a bit shaken.  I thought about going back to look for the guide, but with all the people racing outward, it would have been like swimming up river. Plus, all six of us were looking.  I was sure she wasn’t there.  So, we found an information desk.  The exquisitely beautiful Chinese information woman wrote the name of our hotel in Chinese on two pieces of paper and told us a reasonable taxi price.  We took the papers outside to the line of taxis. 

Everyone. Stared.

Thank God, there was a taxi with room for all six of us.  We got to our hotel about 4pm (picture below).  After a shower, walk about the city (Everyone. Stared.), and dinner in the hotel, we all fell asleep about 7:00pm (7am EST). 

This is our hotel, from the outside.  There is a subway entrance right in the front yerd.  It's really convenient.

I woke up Thursday morning thinking to myself that yesterday was Tuesday, but it wasn’t.  Yesterday was Wednesday.  It’s just that we lost it.  This is ok because on the way home, we are going to gain an extra Friday. 

So, today was my first Thursday in China.  Believe it or not, I was up early.

The first item on the agenda was to get on line. China blocks google, blogspot, wordpress and every other vehicle I might use to communicate with the outside world.  After a few tries, I got on my primary e-mail, but try as I might, I just could not find a way to post a blog entry.   Result: Failure.

The second item on the agenda was to go running in Beijing.  My 15 year old son offered to go with me.  This was a sacrifice for him.  He is on the high school track team and since he’s just shy of six feet, he’s been running hurdles.   He can obliterate me in a sprint and kept making comments about the fact there was no way I was going to keep up with him.  What the poor boy fails to realize is that there is no way he can win here.  I am a 47 year old woman.  If I am slower than him, it’s expected.  If I am faster, he dies a slow emotional death over the next several weeks.  He blasted well ahead of me for the first five minutes  (everyone stared) and after that, I just kept chugging along while he paused, sprinted, paused and finally quit about two blocks from our turn around point.  We got back into our rhythm on the way back until about two blocks from the hotel.   He asked if we could quit and walk.  Heh.  Heh.  Result: Success.

The third agenda item was to sign up for that fun run on the Great Wall of China.  I found the web site here: http://great-wall-marathon.com/, and directions for people living in China to register, and I sent an e-mail to sign up, but no one has contacted me.  Result: hoping. 

We had breakfast in the hotel and it was the first really good meal I had since Monday night.  Dumplings are Awesome! 

This one is filled with some kind of mammal, but my favorite is filled with sweet bean paste.  I know, right?  Who puts sugar in beans?

The last item was to visit with some friends who live in Tianjing.  They traveled three hours to meet us here in Beijing and I’m so glad they did.  It was great to see them again!  We spent the rest of the day together.  They took us to a nicer part of town where there was a shopping mall, better food and generally a better ambiance.   This helped my kids to feel a little less off-kilter.  They also helped Bill find an HP store so he could buy a computer cord (just let it be known here that I didn’t forget to pack anything).

They were the ones who told us that everything is blocked in China (facebook, google etc.) but that we can access our stuff through a VPN (Virtual Private Network).  I can blog now, but not get on Facebook.  I am ok with this.  

We had some plans for the afternoon, but about five o clock we noticed it was awfully quiet in the kids room and when we went to check on them, they were all asleep.  Dead asleep. 

And there was evening and morning, the third day.   

China: Day One - You Are Not Alone

Vitals: We are going to China--actually, we are in China, to adopt two special needs girls.  I haven't been blogging because nothing has been happening.  However, now that I am in China, there is a lot to think about, so there is a lot write about.

Details: 

We went canoeing on Mother’s Day.  We do this every Mother’s Day because it is absolutely my favorite thing to do.

We almost didn’t go.  It rained non-stop the week before and the river was running ridiculously high.  It’s normally two to three feet deep.  On Friday it was at eight feet and falling.  On Saturday it was at seven feet.  Sunday morning, it was six feet and the flow rate, which is normally about 1,000 gallons per minute, was at 4,000.  So we debated almost endlessly whether it was a good idea to take the group canoeing.  The group included our two handicapped sons, the new neighbor and some family friends. 

In the end, we went and I’m so glad we did.  We were on the Shenandoah River.  The weather was perfect and the river was beautiful.  There is a line in The Wind in the Willows where Ratty declares to Mole that the river is “ever changing and ever the same.”  I think about that line every time we push off.  We keep going back to that same stretch of river, but we never canoe the same river twice.  This time all the islands were covered over.  The rocks that make up my class 1-2 rapids were well underwater and the water was flowing so fast, we hardly had to paddle.  The work of the day merely involved keeping the boats upright. 

I love canoeing.  I love the gentle rocking of the water, the rhythmic motion of the paddles, the stretches of rapids followed by pools of calm water.    I love the sound of the paddles in the water and the waves splashing against the side of the boat.  I love hearing the wind in the trees, the birds and my kids (usually whining, but this is love).  I love that there are no working electronics involved.  And, most especially, I love being alone amidst a vast space. We did not see one other soul on that river on Sunday.  We were completely alone.

It was a day full of moments that I just wanted to soak in.

Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time getting back there.  I wrote the above on the plane, halfway through our 13 hour flight to China.  There is no vast space here.  I am left to daydreaming about solitude.   Sadly, I can only remember seconds of that trip, but not minutes.  I so wish I could somehow close my eyes and re-live hours of my life, but all I can manage is moments.

Now I am in Beijing.  There are people EVERYWHERE.  I can’t even guess how far we would have to drive to find that kind of solitude.

But, I am getting ahead of myself….

We left for the airport Tuesday morning about six am.  We took our four older kids with us, but we left our two youngest (Ruslan and Will) at home with our friend Cindy.  If you have read much of this blog, you will know that Ruslan is adopted from Ukraine and is an extremely difficult child.  He is self-obsessed, compulsive, stubborn, neurotic, whiny, manipulative and endlessly annoying.  Really. He drives me crazy.  Nevertheless, I love him dearly and there I was fighting back tears as we said goodbye.  Bill just stood there shaking his head in disbelief.  I told him that he should be grateful.  The fact that I love Ruslan means that Bill might display similar traits and yet I could still love him deeply as well.  What other husbands dwell in such freedom? 

The only other noteworthy event from the morning was that I kept flashing back to my childhood when I would constantly roam through the house to seek and collect crayons, paper and toys in preparation for long trips.  On this morning, I  was roaming through the house to seek and collect pairs of bifocals.  I think I gathered about five pairs of glasses, which is not enough, but it will have to do.  I suspect Cindy noticed what I was collecting and hid some pairs for herself.  …traitor.  

Our flight took off at noon and we landed in Beijing early Wednesday morning at 2am US Eastern Standard Time, which was 2:00pm Wednesday afternoon, Beijing time.  FYI, we had an 80 mph tail wind, we were travelling 600 to 800 mph, at an altitude of 35,000 feet.  The total distance was about 7,000 miles, over the arctic and  the outside temperature bottomed out at NEGATIVE 51 degrees.

Bill met someone on the plane who was part of a tour group that is doing a race on the Great Wall of China.  There is a marathon, a half marathon and a 7k Fun Run—something like 4.5 miles.  I don’t have any interest in marathons, but I could do that 7K.  Oh yeah.  I need to find out about this.

But, for now, we are in our hotel.  Here is some pictures of our current view.

I really am glad to be here, as long as I don't start thinking about that river. 

We Brethren, Are

Tuesday morning, 6am.  My son woke me up and asked me to help him find a poem.  He had to memorize something for his English class, due today.  I went downstairs and got on the laptop. 

Of course, the poem he had to memorize was entitled, “Truth.”  Have you ever tried to do a search on one word?  I asked him the author (he forgot her name).  I asked him for the first line of the poem (he hadn’t memorized it yet, remember?).  I asked him for any identifying information, anything he could remember about the poem that might help me find it (the author was the first black woman poet named in the library of congress). 

Was any of this helpful?  NO.  After ten minutes, I took the computer into the kitchen so we could look for the poem while he ate breakfast.  We finally found this site: http://www.americanpoems.com/search/s._truth.   I was able to skim over the title and first line of exactly ten poems.  When I hit number eleven, I could no longer resist and I clicked the link, knowing this was not the poem we were looking for.  This was the poem I clicked:

 I Died for Beauty, by Emily Dickinson

I died for Beauty -- but was scarce

Adjusted in the Tomb,

When One who died for Truth, was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly "Why I failed”?

"For Beauty", I replied.

"And I,  for Truth -- Themself are One.

We Brethren, are.” He said.

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night

We talked between the Rooms

Until the Moss had reached our lips

And covered up -- our names.

I had to read those words a second time, just to make sure I’d read what I thought I’d read.  By the third reading, tears were streaming down my face and dripping off my chin. I promise you, I was not pre-menstrual.  This is just the way it is.  By the fourth reading, I was committing it to memory.

In the meantime my son was looking at me like I was a lunatic and, regrettably, my husband came downstairs hoping for some breakfast.  Sometime after that third reading he picked a bagel out of the trash and asked why I had thrown it away (It was moldy, but I couldn’t speak). 

Since I didn’t answer, he looked over at me and, being too wise to ask, silently handed me a napkin.  Then he went back to investigating the bagel.  After looking a bit more closely, he found the mold, held it up and asked if I thought he could still eat it.

“Don’t ask me about bagels when I’m reading poetry.”  I sobbed. 

“You’re so much deeper than me.”  He answered, throwing the bagel back in the trash.

“My heart is breaking,” I whispered.

“Is there any cereal left?” 

“No.”  I swallowed.  “Listen.  Let me read you this. ‘ I died… ‘”

Before I could go on, my son, who was reading the poem over my shoulder, stopped me and said, “Mom, that’s not the right poem.  Can we move on?” 

“No,” I squeaked.  ‘I died for beauty…”  I tried to say more, but my face was now a swampland of tears and phlegm and my napkin was soaked.  I choked up before I could get to the next words.

Bill mumbled something about people who are left-handed and gave me another napkin.

Matt said, “Mom, I have a bus to catch.”

I swallowed hard, minimized the page and kept looking.  We finally found Matt’s poem.  It’s not bad, but I won’t be memorizing it. http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/242240.   The poem is

Truth, by Gwendolyn Brook

And if sun comes

How shall we greet him?

Shall we not dread him,

Shall we not fear him

After so lengthy a

Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,

Though we have prayed

All through the night-years—

What if we wake one shimmering morning to

Hear the fierce hammering

Of his firm knuckles

Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—

Shall we not flee

Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter

Of the familiar

Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it

To sleep in the coolness

Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily

Over the eyes.

I offered to send the link to his phone, but he said he couldn’t read his phone in school because the teachers would think he was texting.  As I took the computer back to my office and connected it to the printer, we talked a little about the poem’s meaning.  Matt wasn’t convinced it was, “relevant to his daily life.”  However, I thought that second to last stanza was an almost complete description of his daily life.  I went a step further and suggested that we tape a copy of that stanza to the television where he plays the X Box, just so he could marvel in its relevance on a day to day basis. 

The printer coughed up the poem and I handed the paper to Matt.  He thanked me and five minutes later, he was in the yellow bus, on his way to school.  I started getting breakfast for the next set of children, all the while repeating the poem to myself and trying to figure out why a line like, “'Themself are One,--  We Brethren, are,' He said.” was still causing my eyes to swell with tears.

 

Ten minutes later, Bill came downstairs.  Matt had left his paper copy of the poem on the kitchen table.  Bill took the printout and copied/texted the whole poem to Matt so he could copy it onto a piece of paper and memorize it before English class.  I was too annoyed with him to suggest texting the link. 

Neither one of them ever asked about that first poem.  I suppose in the end, I’m grateful that Matt is memorizing Gwendolyn Brook’s Truth rather than Emily Dickinson’s.  Despite my melancholy streak, I’d much rather bash him for ignoring truth than mourn him for dying over it. 

Later that day, I was in the car with Reilly, my 11 year old.   She was stuck with me, so I told her to listen carefully and I recited the first poem.  After I got through it, congratulating myself that I was only slightly tearful, she said, “I hate it when you say things I don’t understand.”   So, I explained it to her as much as I could and, being a practical minded eleven year old, she said, “doesn’t that lady know that dead people can’t talk to each other?   How can she write a poem about truth and beauty if it includes talking dead people?”

Of course she was right about this, and I told her so.  I also told her that we don’t have to talk about poetry anymore.   

I’d planned on cleaning the bathrooms on Tuesday.   Instead, I ended up memorizing poetry alongside my son.  He got an “A.”  I got a red nose and further confirmation that yes, I am living in a house with seven other right-handed, left-brained people.   In case there was any doubt, I had my husband read this blog draft Tuesday evening.  When I asked for feedback he messed with his hair a little and then headed for the exit.  He stopped just outside the doorway and said, “Well, …I cleaned the toilet in the upstairs bathroom earlier.  The day wasn’t a complete loss.” 

The Paper Chase

So, obviously, there was a gap my blog posting.  You might think that my problem with blogging is that we have six kids and things are busy here, but that is not really the issue.  The problem is that we are adopting again and adoption involves a ton of paperwork.  Only a government agent could grasp just how much paperwork we are talking about here—gazillions of pieces of paper full of nit-picky details that have to be just right.  There is no fudging anything.   This is a bad medium for me. 

If it seems like I’m exaggerating with that gazillion, trust me, I am not.  Among other things, we’ve had to hand over all of our legal certificates (birth, marriage, former adoptions, etc.), all our financial information (income, out-go, two years of w-2’s, tax returns, car/house payments, investments, deeds, etc.), our driving records, our medical records, proof of life/medical/dental insurance,  two sets of fingerprints, a criminal record check for every state we have lived in since we were eighteen and a copy of our dog's license and vaccine record.  The checklist for our US homestudy was seventy items.  The checklist for the China study is fifteen SETS of documents, and I don’t have patience to figure out how many that is in total. 

Here is the story of just one set of forms.  I want to make sure everyone knows how much I am suffering here, even though this is not my fault (mostly).  I am not making any of this up. 

We started thinking about adopting sometime in December 2011.  I found a child sometime the next month-- January, found a homestudy agency in February, started the interviews in March and started the paperwork in April. 

There were two sets of physical exam forms that we needed to have filled out by our doctor.  One set for our US homestudy agency and one set for our dossier that will go to China.  They were essentially the same forms, both involving a general physical exam, blood work and a urine sample.   The exception was that the China form required extra blood tests and notarized signatures.   Bill and I went to our doctors office on separate days, with both forms in hand, so the doctors could fill out the forms and get the blood work started.  I miraculously found a date in April that all four of us could meet (me, Bill, the doctor and our notary, who is now like a member of the family).   By that time, I thought  the results of the blood work would be in and we could complete all four forms in that one day. 

Visit Number One:  All four of us met at the doctor’s office.  The two physicals for the US homestudy were completed, the blood work results filled in and the doctor handed them over.  This is an entire box checked, which is no small feat.   We started on the papers for China, only to find that Bill’s entire China form was missing.   He had left his forms with the doctor, while I had taken my forms home so I could keep them safe.  We can call Bill’s China Forms: Missing Papers Number One. 

There was a scramble in the doctor’s office as three nurses and two office managers searched high and low looking for the missing form.  I noticed that they focused specifically on a letter size wire basket in the front office, painstakingly looking at every paper in the basket.   No form.   I did not want to arrange another meeting.  So, I was about to call the Chinese agency to see if they could fax a blank copy, when the doctor found Bill’s form.  It had already been electronically downloaded into their medical records system.  We printed a copy of Bill’s China Form and as they were filling out the blood work portion, the doctor realized that Bill and I needed extra blood tests for the China forms.   Bill and I gave another vial of blood, the missing tests were ordered, and we all agreed that the easiest thing to do was to notarize the doctors signatures now* and then fill in the results for the missing blood tests when they arrived. 

Visit Number Two (Still in April):  The blood work returned, the forms were completed.  The receptionist retrieved them from the wire basket with what I now consider remarkable ease and I sent them off to our Chinese adoption agency along with a two inch pile of papers to be added into our dossier headed for China.   I naively checked off another box.

Visit Number Three (Sometime in May):  I got an  e-mail from our China coordinator that said this:  “I just received your Mailer 1.  The only concern I have is on the medical forms. The HbsAG test is not circled on your form or Bill’s form- negative/positive. Your form is also missing the liver function test- normal/abnormal. In order to avoid having to redo and re-notarize the forms, can you have the doctors write up a letter stating these tests were completed and the outcome? They can scan and e-mail the letter to me or fax it.”  (NOTE TO THE READER:  you must not fault my doctor for this.  That form is endless and unorganized, with check boxes everywhere.)

It would have been so easy if I could just forward this e-mail to my doctor, but they protect his e-mail like it’s the recipe for Coca-Cola.  I left a few messages with the receptionists, but I never got a call back and after a few attempts, it looked like I was going to actually have to make an appointment to get these three letters.  Thanks be to God, sometime in June, I actually saw the doctor at our local pool.   He is an outgoing, friendly sort and I was able to walk straight up to him and explain the situation.  He asked me to print out the e-mail (WHY did I never think of this?), drop it off and  he would write up what I needed. 

Visit Number Four (Sometime in June):  I got a call.  The letters were done.  I couldn’t get to the office before closing, so they decided to put the letters in an envelope and tape it to a back door for me to pick up over the weekend.   I’m not really sure why we didn’t just use the USPS, but for some reason,  the plan was that I would pick up the letters at the office.  Of course, I didn’t get to this over the weekend, and it actually wasn’t until Tuesday that I was able to stop by the office.  I checked the back door.  The papers were not there.  I asked at the front desk and the receptionist went to that same wire basket.  She did a quick glance through the papers. And when she didn’t find any letters, she grabbed a bar stool and got comfortable.  Then she painstakingly looked over every paper, taking them out one by one and making a pile next to the basket.  While she was looking we chatted a little about her family.  Her dog didn’t seem to be doing well and they were about to hold a yard sale.  Her daughter was leaving for college in August.  She finally got to the end of the basket and came up empty handed.  She checked a few more spots, then admitted defeat.  We’ll call these letters Missing Papers Number Two.   The receptionist said they would have to print up some new letters.

About this time, Bill joined some sort of company wellness program and needed proof of a recent physical.  Bill handed over the form and asked me to drop it by the doctor’s office.  Bill was essentially in the dark about what was happening with the adoption paperwork.  I told him I’d get to it, but the truth is there was no way I was going to complicate things by adding another form into the mix.  I kept it in the car. 

Visit Number Five (Also in June):  I got a call.  The letters were done.  The receptionist walked over to the wire basket, picked up a stack of three letters and handed them to me.  Everything would have ended right there, but I made a tragic mistake.  I thought the liver function letter was for Bill.   Something about his liver is always screwing up blood tests (he can’t give blood) and I stupidly thought we needed a liver letter for him.  So, I left my liver function test letter with the receptionist and asked her to make a copy for Bill, sending us ALL back into the frying pan.

Visit Number Six (Also in June):  I sheepishly stopped by the office a few days later.  By now I’d figured out that I didn’t need a letter for Bill, but hoped I could just pick up the two letters and no one would ever know.  Of course, when I saw the receptionist, she walked over to the fickle wire basket and took out one sheet of paper that was on top of the pile.  It was the liver function test letter for Bill that we never really needed.   I asked her if she still had the liver letter for me, but sadly, I’d said that it wasn’t necessary and they had shredded it.  I now had to admit my mistake and ask the doctor to write up a THIRD liver function test letter for me.  I was so embarrassed, I got out of there as quickly as possible.  I forgot to ask about the dog.  

Visit Number Seven (Now it’s July):  The receptionist saw me walk into the office and headed straight for the wire basket.   After the customary glance through the pile, she reached over and grabbed the bar stool.   While she was looking, we chatted about her daughter, her still ailing dog and the sale of her family car.  We were just about to enter the realm of her husband’s upcoming operation when she hit the bottom of the wire basket.   She didn’t find the third liver function test letter for me, but, she did find an envelope at the very bottom of the basket.  She smiled, walked back to the glass window and gleefully handed me the original envelope, with the tape still on it, that was  waiting for me at their back door sometime in June.  Missing Papers Number Two had been found.

Now that I had all the letters I needed for China, I went back to the car and got out the Employee Physical Form for Bill from the glove compartment and I handed it to the receptionist.  I explained what we needed and, by force of habit, agreed to pick up the forms in a few days. 

Visit Number Eight (still in July):  I stopped by the office to grab the Employee Physical Form for Bill.  The receptionist went to her perch next to the wire basket (the stool was already in place) and started going through the papers.  In case  you are wondering, her family was fine, but the dog had died.  Well toward the bottom of the stack, she looked up at me, smiled and walked back to the window.   She triumphantly handed me a form with Bill’s name right at the top.  It was the medical form for China that had been missing since that first meeting back in April.  I am not making this up. Missing Papers Number One had been found.   

I thanked her and explained that, while this was very helpful, what I really needed was the Employee Physical Form, a different form, a green form, that I’d dropped off a few days ago.  She looked around a few more places in the office and finally decided the form was missing.  She would talk to the doctor and give me a call. 

Visit Number Nine (the end of July):  I got a call.  The form was found and ready.   The receptionist saw me walk into the office and headed straight for the wire basket.  I remembered not to ask about her dog.  She grabbed a form at the top of the pile and handed it over to me.  It was the Employee Physical.  I smiled, thanked the receptionist for her help and gave her a warm handshake.  We both knew that this meant goodbye for a while, at least until flu season. 

This is why I haven’t been blogging.  Adoption paperwork is always like this.  The thought of putting words on a page was enough to make me vomit.  Think of it as a type of paperwork induced morning sickness.  It’s almost as annoying as pregnancy and it certainly takes longer.  Nevertheless, we got all our paperwork done last month and sent everything into the INS in early September.  And now we wait.

 

*NOTE: a notary doesn’t verify that anything on a form is true or false.  A notary just verifies a signature—that the person signing the form is writing his true name.