What I'm doing here, take two

A friend of mine read this. He found it stimulating, and he likes things that make him think. He had converted to Judaism, he once explained to me, because thinking is a kind of sacrament in that religion. A way of honoring the divinity.



But why was I doing it, he wanted to know.

It's still true that this is a place for creating a record for Maia. But it's become a kind of creative endeavor in its own right, too. I carry my camera with me everywhere now.



And that makes me a little uneasy. I'm enough of a sociologist to know that this will always be as much about me as it is about Maia, and that it is shot through with more or less transparent attempts to impart this or that impression about who I am.

But do you connect with this at the level of what I say or suggest about myself or is it the effort itself that you see. The John in the story or John the storyteller?

I think it's the latter. I hope so, anyhow.



If there is a god, and if it pleases god when people try to put their minds to good use, I don't believe it's the thought itself that god loves, but the thinking--someone trying to muddle through and to preserve love and clarity in the process.



What's in the stories--that's crafted. But what you see in the whole--I don't have any control over that. All I can do is try to make my stories ring true. And if it gives you some kind of good feeling to be a witness to this--well, that makes me feel good. As though I've pleased my god.



In the first two photos, we're on the train on our way back to Almaty from Shymkint. It was May 12, 2004, we had just adopted Maia, and we were headed home.

For some weeks, Maia continued to carry things around in her mouth as you see her doing in the second of the two photos from the train. Her mouth was another pair of hands for her. That's a doll she's holding there. Our guess is that she had learned to use her mouth like that at the orphanage in order to maintain control over things that she wanted to keep for herself.

The photo of her in Kristina's socks and shoes was taken in our motel room in Los Angeles on May 18, 2004. We stayed there for a night on the way back to Honolulu. It was Maia's idea to dress up that way; she has always liked to dress up in Kristina's clothes.

The photo in the bathtub is from May 28th, 10 days after we had gotten back to Honolulu. Maia was fascinated when she first saw Kristina bathing in Almaty and couldn't wait to try it herself. Every time I look at this photo or the next one, it makes me smile.

The photo on the swings is from June 13, 2004. To this day, she takes a pure joy in swings. It wouldn't surprise me if she flies planes some day.

The photo you see directly above this is from October 30, 2004. Maia had been going to a gym class on Saturdays. She loved the trampoline and the T-shirt she's wearing in this photo. I love the photo for what it shows of her impish personality. Maia loves to have fun.



The photo just above is from April 18, 2005. It's now about a year since Maia came into our lives. This is one of a small set of photos I have of the two of us. I'm not sure what we're watching. It could be Barney--she favored Barney during that period.

The last photo is from dinner tonight--a little over a year later. Maia is pretending her fork is a trunk and that she's an elephant. She loves elephants. She is a big fan of Babar.



It's been quite a trip to this point. It feels like I've changed a lot along the way. I know that what I do with my time outside of work has completely changed.

And that's a good thing.

Today was my birthday.

John, Thursday, July 27, 2006

Maia forensics of a different kind

Can you make that out? It's a Pooh sticker on my laptop that says, "a hearts and flowers sort of day". That and the butterfly sticker next to it are gifts from Maia.

On the other side of the keyboard are some more butterflies:



I had never really thought much about children as gift givers, but it's a big part of what Maia does. I'm always finding little gifts like these from her, or not realizing that she's given me something until later, when I look down at my computer, or on my arms, or in my car, and find something.



This is where I've been sleeping. (It's just easier right now, with Maia needing the security of what she calls the "Big Bed".) These stuffed animals were put there by Maia to keep me company.



This is Maia's fleet of cars and trucks. We gave her a few new ones for her birthday. "I like cars," she told Kristina. As much as Maia is all about being a girl, she's also all about cars and trucks, too. Things like the cars and trucks make Maia's presence in the house palpable.



This is where we hang Maia's pictures, and here's one of them, close up:



It features lots of rainbows (the things that look like horseshoe staples), her name, a sun that looks sort of like a giant jelly fish, tunnels, doors and necklaces, and some letters and numbers. On the right side, towards the corner, you'll see a purple figure that looks like something out of War of the Worlds. That's Daddy. The other two smaller versions of the same thing are Maia and Mommy.

And here's Maia, in girlie-girl mode, with a ton of barettes in her hair:



If you're thinking about adopting, don't expect it to be easy. It isn't an "and they all lived happily ever after" sort of thing. And don't expect it to be identical to having a natural child. It isn't and the differences should be respected.

But if you can add something to the life of a child like Maia, you'll get it back a thousand times over.

All of these photos were from today.

John, Thursday, July 20, 2006

Maia forensics

I have been trying to put my finger on how Maia's experience at the orphanage has made her different from other children. Part of me resists this--she is a child. Why can't I use the wisdom that 50 plus years has given me to reach her, no matter what?

Answer: because I'm not that wise.

Since I'm not that wise, I make mistakes, and so, one of my preoccupations has become Maia forensics.

What Kristina and I are trying to deal with, I think, are the consequences for an infant of spending the first 22 months of her life without someone there to take care of her, and just her, when she needs it.

It's not just a void. It's whatever thoughts, expectations and emotions Maia built up around the adults who were in her life during those 22 months--the caretakers she had at the orphanage. As shaped and complicated by the fact that those persons were not trying to be parents, as Kristina and I are, but caretakers. They had their own welfare to consider and could not have risked investing too much of themselves in any child, even one so engaging and cute as Maia. Especially one so engaging and cute as Maia. "Caretaker" couldn't have been just a job title for them, but a persona--an emotional adaptation to the need to provide food, shelter, security and caretaking without becoming too attached to the engaging, loving little beings seeking that very attachment from them.

When Maia is angry at us, she will say, "Go away!" Kristina and I always react badly to that--it feels like rejection. But as I think about it, it's a perfectly natural thing for her to say because, in fact, her caretakers did go away on a regular basis. If nothing else, they had to have been pulled away by their routines, their need to move on to the next child or situation, or to make room for the next shift. "Going away" is something that she had to have gotten used to with adults, even those she most liked. Coming from her now, it sounds like an angry reminder to us of the limitations of our roles: "Go away!" It's an assertion, too, of independence that has some kind of history of hurt behind it. "Go away! I don't need you!"

We know she doesn't really want us to go away. But how do you get through the "go away" moment?

Another difficult moment is when she's onstage--in the spotlight. She doesn't like it. My guess is that she was taught not to like it and that the experience probably had unpredictable and ramifying consequences for her that were often unpleasant. Singling out any child for special attention must have been problematic for her caretakers from a social control point of view--it would have upset the balance among the children, have introduced jealousies, rivalries, competitions and maybe also have led to (or depended upon) too great an investment by the caretakers. An investment like favoritism. Or some special and, in the circumstances, inappropriate fondness.

The top picture is of Maia dancing with a friend at her birthday party this past Friday. Just before the chain of events that had led to the little dance, I had tried to get Maia to let me take a photo of her with her crown on (a birthday child gets a crown at her school). The result is shown by this next picture--Maia turning away, denying me the photo, just as I was about to take it, and taking the crown off of her head.



What happened after this picture was a kind of "Maia gone wild"--darting about the room, seeing what kind of trouble she could stimulate, all of it exaggerated, and unlike her "normal" self--the self she portrays when she hasn't been forced into the discomfort of the spotlight.

On Saturday, it was raining. Maia and I usually go to the park on Saturday, but I suggested that we go shopping at a nearby mall instead. She liked that idea. I asked her what she wanted to go shopping for. "Tape," she said. We had run out of the scotch tape we use to hang her drawings.

"Anything else?"

"Bubbles," she said. So we got those things. And this is Maia blowing bubbles in the carport the next day.









Just a beautiful, playful little girl, having fun with bubbles in the driveway.

For the first few months after she came back with us, she would wipe her face vigorously whenever I kissed her--like she was scrubbing off the kiss. She would usually use my pants to do that. "Not yucky, Maia," I would tell her. And then finally one day she said, "Not yucky," after I kissed her. And she hasn't wiped off a kiss since then.

I think that was something that she had learned at the orphanage, too--to reject too much affection, both for her own emotional protection and that of her caretakers.

I want her to keep some of the qualities you see in that first photo of her dancing with her friend--her charisma, spontaneity and playfulness. But under her control. Like in this picture with two sisters at the park on Sunday:




John, Monday, July 17, 2006

Back to the orphanage

Maia's birthday is Saturday. She will be four. Tomorrow, we're having ice cream and cake (no icing--a school rule) for her at her preschool.

When and if she ever looks at this, I think it may be the orphanage, Shymkent and Almaty that interest her most. So I'm going to put up more pics of those places.

The top one is of the orphanage from May 3, 2004. I think the young woman you see here with the children--the one without the hat--was herself an orphan. Not sure why I think that. Something about how she acted with them and with us. I had the feeling that she very much wanted us to adopt Maia, but for Maia's sake, not any other reason. The children all seemed to like her, and she seemed to understand them.



This is Maia smiling at one of our interpreters/facilitators. How could anyone disappoint that face?

I have very mixed feelings about our interpreters/facilitators. They made their money from adoptions, and they pressed hard to close the deal. That's a crude way to put it, maybe, but it's the truth. Adoption in Kazakhstan is not for the faint of heart.



This is Maia with the Director of the orphanage. The Director had described Maia as a beautiful little girl who was missing an ear. With that introduction and our previous experiences at the orphanage, we had been ready to leave. We stayed mostly to be polite and considerate.

But when Maia was introduced to us, she stole our hearts. Maybe you can see why from these photos.

Still, it wasn't easy. To a person, family and a number of professionals from back home--doctors, nurses--discouraged us in the strongest possible terms.

But my mother changed her opinion, and Kristina's mother did, too. And there was one doctor to whom we had sent photos of Maia and a translation of her medical records who was just brilliant, positive and wonderful in an hour long conversation with us from Seattle. His name is Dr. Julian Davies. Here's a link: http://www.adoptmed.org/



This is a Babushka in a little courtyard that the children slept in during the summer when it was hot. After we had committed to Maia, the Director of the orphanage warmed up to us and acceded to our request for a tour. I ended up liking the Director. A tough old bird, but I think her heart was in the right place.



This was the play room, and next is the music room. The Director was very proud of these rooms.



That's Kristina, the Director, and one of our interpreters. This young woman had been to school in England, was very pretty, spoke impeccable English and was very sweet. She was also the daughter of the Minister of Education, who had jurisdiction over orphanages. One day, as we went into a grocery store, a young boy's jaw literally dropped open when he saw her. His father had burst into laughter and swatted him on the head.



The laundry. This operation ran all day long. I'm not sure how many children were at the orphanage. I would guess in the range of 50. Easily enough to keep the laundry going.



The nursery.



Sometimes, people probe a little on the issue of whether it might not have been better for us, or whether we might not have preferred, to adopt an infant.

I think Kristina and I wanted this process to be as unscripted as possible. Neither of us is particularly religious, but Kristina is spiritual, and I'm inclined to trust that things will happen as they should. Maia needed us, and we needed her. She is perfect for us. I hope we're good for her. I can't imagine life without her.



This was Maia a few days after we got back. She was jumping off the box that her stroller came in into Kristina's arms. She's always been an imp and a risk taker. Once when Kristina was scolding her, she looked at me, grinned and said, "I funny." (In pidgin--the local version of English--the copula is dropped, and Maia is learning pidgin at her preschool.)



This was Maia tonight. She was turning Kristina's face towards the camera and saying, "Say, 'Cheese'!"



Happy Birthday, Sweetness.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

I go to a baseball game. And later, I get married.

"Mama loved to watch baseball. Of course, we lived right there at Blakely Field."

It was Saturday, July 8th, and we were watching a Mariner's baseball game at Safeco Field in Seattle, where my mother now lives with my stepfather. My brother and his family are there, too. It was my brother's season tickets that had gotten the four of us in.

I had gone to Seattle because my mother had fallen ill and had had to be hospitalized. It had sounded serious and, in fact, was, and I had flown to Seattle to be with her. But by the time I had gotten there, my mother had cajoled, harassed, and mostly humored the medical staff into letting her out. She doesn't like hospitals, her condition had improved markedly, and she had wanted to spend the time with me.

Blakely Field is in Welch, West Virginia. It sits in a a kind of bowl--there's a hillside behind the field that's lined with narrow streets and modest houses. My mother's family had lived in one of those--or half of one--it was a duplex--and from there had watched baseball played at Blakely Field. I found an old picture of Blakely Field on the internet.



I don't think you can see where my mother's house was from this picture--it was further up the hill and to the left.

In the memory of my mother's family, Welch is a big town. It's true that Welch was a quantum leap from War, which itself was a quantum leap from Newhall. As the country had come out of the Great Depression, my mother's family had moved from Newhall to War to Welch, their fortunes improving as the country's had.

But in actuality, Welch is a small town. As of July, 2004, its population was estimated at about 2,400. It's smaller than it used to be, but I don't believe it ever held many more than 5,000 people. Last Saturday night Safeco Field wasn't completely filled, but there was a pretty good crowd. Safeco Field holds 48,000 people. About 20 Welches.

"Who played there, Mom?"



"Minor league teams. And teams from the counties. I remember McDowell County played Mercer County. Mama used to follow baseball. The teams in the big cities, too."



I've been on that hillside behind Blakely Field. You could sense it, how the people had watched the games from there. The same confrontations between pitchers and batters. The same exhilaration when a ball flew off a bat, or when there was a close call. You could feel the excitement that it had generated on that hillside.



Baseball is a great game. I hope Maia acquires a taste for it, too.

I had planned to stay in Seattle at least a week, but I left early. Kristina had cried Thursday night (my first night in Seattle) and Maia had cried Friday night, so I moved up the return flight to Sunday. My mother understood. I had never been away overnight from Maia and hadn't been away overnight from Kristina for several years.

At home on Sunday night, Maia announced, "I'm going to marry my Daddy." The children have been marrying each other at preschool. "But I'm already married to Mommy," I said, but this did not discourage her.

Maia had been given two strands of beads at the July 4th block party, and she put those on me. Then she hung on old carnation lei from my head, sort of like a veil, and waved a dry erase pen in front of me. Then she made me exchange positions with her. She put those things on herself and had me wave the pen in front of her. That completed the ceremony, though I didn't wave the pen quite right the first time and had to be shown how to do it.



I wouldn't believe any of this stuff, except that I was there when it happened. Little girls are just magical.

Women are magical, as I think about it. From my grandmother, to my mother, to Kristina and Maia.

John, Monday, July 10, 2006

Maia makes some friends

Last night, we went to a dinner to celebrate the wedding of Henry's nephew--Henry was Kristina's father and this nephew was the son of Henry's brother.



There were three tables of relatives. The bride and groom and some close friends and relatives sat at the middle one; the children of the older of Henry's biological daughters sat at the one on the far side of the table of honor.



Our table included an old friend of the family and her son. The son must be in his forties now. There's something wrong with him. His head is a a little pinched at the temples, there are scars on his skull, and it's clear he's not the brightest guy in the world. He usually wears a dour expression that's not really a sign of what's going on inside, more one of what he's missing emotionally owing to whatever his physical problem may be.



At the start of the dinner, Maia was reluctant to climb into her high chair. Then she held onto my arm and hid her head behind it. She does that when she's frightened, so I knew something was bothering her.

"I don't like that man," she said. "He's mean."

"Mean" is a generic term for her--it means somebody who looks angry or unfriendly or scary.

"He's not a mean man, Maia. He just has some problems. He was born that way. But he's not scary."

Maia knows the concept of "born that way" from Finding Nemo and her own problem. But I wasn't persuasive. She remained afraid to look at him. Even when she finally did sit up, some ten minutes or so into the meal, she avoided looking at him. She would snatch a look at him and then look away, afraid that he'd catch her in the act.



As the dinner wore on, Maia loosened up and became friends with the "Popos" at our table.



"Popo" means mother's mother. It's the term Maia uses for any Asian woman of a certain age.



She really had fun with them, as you may surmise from the pics.



And they enjoyed her enormously. Nothing warms an older Chinese lady's heart like a little girl or boy who enjoys their company.



Finally, at the end of the meal, she sat down next to the man who had frightened her. She did that all on her own. It isn't something I encouraged or would have encouraged. It was just something that she did spontaneously.

Maybe because he had been watching her playing with the Popos, he soon picked up a napkin, made a cone out of it, and put it on Maia's head.



She smiled at him. And then she did the neatest thing.



She put the napkin cone on the man's head. I don't think I've ever seen him so animated and happy. He didn't frighten her anymore.



Sometimes she will do something that just astonishes me.

John, Thursday, July 6, 2006