Colorado Day Two

My post titles are not very creative, so I’m going to have to start coming up with something more descriptive. The problem is, we’re not doing much yet, so “day one” and “day two” seem to be about as descriptive as is necessary. Tomorrow, however, we are doing Four Mile Hike, so hopefully it will be a livelier posting.

Today, I’m continuing on the theme of how we are seeing through the lens of a half-full glass, despite the cast on Erin’s leg, and the fact that we have now had to call in a prescription for Alison for cough medicine WITH codeine. And we woke up this morning to a large crack in the front windshield of our van. Okay, so now it’s just getting sort of funny. And Kyle mentioned this morning that he wanted to go up into the hot air balloon this year for the first time, and I told him that perhaps this isn’t the year to do that.

But despite all that, the mountains that surround our condo are beautiful and unchanging. They are the same mountains that have been here every year since we started coming to this place in Colorado (30 years ago). Those mountains have surrounded us during the vacations that were filled with all good things, and the vacations that are more challenging. Yesterday we saw a rainbow jutting out from behind a mountain. Night before last we watched a gorgeous sunset that was peeking out from behind blue clouds just before it dropped behind the mountain range. The mountains are the reason that Dad brings us here every year. Something about them evokes a sense of timelessness. We watch our family changing, growing, aging, but Pagosa Peak looks the same as it did when I was a restless teenager who spent way too much time in the Rec Center playing Pac Man. It hasn’t changed since Kyle and I brought Colin and Erin here when they were babies and we were exhausted young parents. And I can look out my window today and see the same Pagosa Peak. The babies are teenagers now, and they are restless but they are good and funny and they still like to hang out with us sometimes. The grandparents are older and moving slower, but being together for this two weeks means the world to them. And Kyle and I are not quite as exhausted as we once were, even though there is another little one in the house again. She brings us joy and reminds us that looking at the world through a child’s eyes is often the best way to view things. And the glass is truly half-full, despite the cast, the codeine and the crack in the windshield, so I am raising the glass in a toast to the mountains…and the blessings that surround us.

Colorado Day One

Well, it’s been an interesting start to our vacation so far. Alison is sick. She’s got some kind of strange, croupy cough, so I stayed in the condo with her today while Kyle took Colin and Erin and went with the cousins for a hike at Piedra River. Erin came home hobbling. She twisted her ankle on the hike to the river. So at this moment, I am sitting on the “B” side of the condo (our digs) with Alison coughing and Erin elevating her swollen ankle. Colin says we are “dropping like flies.” I refuse to believe it. One of the things that I have been thinking about lately is how easy it is to look at the glass as “half empty”, and then to lament and point out to everyone the half empty glass. It’s not that I’m a totally negative person. It’s just that I like to look at things from all angles, and so often life seems to be filled with pointy, painful, complicated angles that seem to demand my rumination. And so I spend more time than necessary focusing my view on those angles, and not enough time realizing that there is always another angle. If the glass is half empty then it is also half full.

Erin is dealing with her sprained ankle like a trooper. The “glass half full” part of this is that as she and her dad spent an hour hiking back out, they got a chance to talk about things they might never had talked about, and to top it off, she kept telling him, “Thank you Daddy.” And Alison…well, it’s harder to find the half full glass in this. She would love to go fishing, hiking, swimming, and all the things that she usually does here, but instead she is stuck in the condo coughing like a three pack-a-day smoker. However, because I stayed back with Alison and didn’t hike with the rest of them, Mom and I got a chance to sit and talk today, and that was good. I had no agenda, no place to run off to, so we just had some good mother/daughter time. And Alison is getting lots of sympathy, and she absolutely loves that. The truth is, Erin’s ankle will heal, and Alison’s cough will get better and all will be back to normal. I want to look back and know that I saw it all as half full vacation, and not a half empty one. There is good to be found in all the crazy angles of life. Oh, and the mountains are beautiful, and I’m still smiling.

Back from San Francisco

We had such a great San Francisco trip!! We did Alcatraz, Haight Asbury, a San Francisco Giants game (they lost), shopping, eating, walking along the beach. It was all over too soon! We leave tomorrow for Colorado for the annual two week Jackson/Tresch vacation in the mountains. It will be good. More cool weather...hopefully.

Haircut in Chinatown

As promised, photos from Alison's beautiful new do compliments of the Happy Hair Salon.

Chinatown!

Yesterday was Chinatown. It was also time for a haircut, so we decided what better way to experience the culture than to find a hair salon off the beaten track and get Alison a new do. We found the Happy Hair Salon, which was basically a one-man operation. In true fashion, we were given advice on Alison – she was coughing and so he told us that she needed cough medicine, and that we should probably give her more than one dose a day. We were also told that her hair was dry, and that she needed more conditioning. I was transported back to China, where we were chastised for not bundling her enough, and were questioned about what we were feeding her. It’s funny, if anyone but a Chinese person tried to give me advice about my daughter, I would be touchy about it. But in China, and in Chinatown, I simply smile and nod, and in some strange way feel as though Chinese people have a right not to mind their own business when it comes to Alison. I’m not sure if this is true, but I don’t sweat it. I smile, and agree, and generally act as though I’m appreciative and in need of their well-meaning interference.

We loved Chinatown. We ate at a restaurant that was not frequented by tourists. We chose the restaurant because it served pork giblet congee. For the first year of Alison’s life, she at “pork bone congee,” which we fed her while we were in China – much to her delight. So we were curious to see if she would recognize it. And she didn’t. In fact, she only ate a few bites and she was done. Not impressed. The food was delicious. Kyle had spicy squid with peppers and rice, and I had barbeque pork with bean cake and rice. Alison had an egg roll and picked around at it. Oh well.

It was a great day. Chinatown was definitely filled with memories of China. We bought a lot of junk, ate great food and were given advice about our daughter. Ahhh. Can’t wait for 2010!

I can't get photos to upload on Blogger. Not sure what the problem is. I'll have some up tomorrow. Today we did Alcatraz and Haight Asbury, but will have to save that (and photos of it) for tomorrow also. Maybe Blogger will be feeling better and will cooperate with me.

San Fran

We’re here in San Francisco! It’s been 25 years for me (I bought my horrible teal green prom dress here Spring Break of my senior year). Kyle was here, but only in the airport in November of 2001. We were on our way to China and to Alison. So really, Alison is the only one who hasn’t been here, and we have come here for her. San Francisco is our “Plan B,” since we can’t go to China right now. We’re touring Chinatown tomorrow.
Today, we hung out at Pier 39 and toured the Bay Aquarium. We took a cab to Lombard Avenue. This street is known as the “windiest” (as in winding, not windy) in the world. And it’s steep. We walked up it, and it was just as steep as the Great Wall! I made that point on the way up, but of course we know that it doesn’t come close to comparing to the Wall. But it was still very amazing. There were lots and lots of tourists walking up and driving down (you can’t drive up, only down). And what was most amazing was the fact that this is a residential street, so the people that live on Lombard Avenue live with tourists walking and driving up and down their street at all hours of the day.
We walked back from Lombard to the Pier (it was downhill all the way). There is a row of outdoor food stalls that sell fresh fish, so we got a bowl of crab and a plate of shrimp. It was delicious. When you’re from Oklahoma, you definitely know the difference between fresh fish, and what we in Oklahoma think is fresh fish. Here at the Bay, boats are out all night catching the fish. They return about 4 a.m., and the fish is prepared for restaurants, food stalls, markets, and is shipped out to other locations (about three days later it probably arrives in someplace like Oklahoma).
We ate dinner at Scoma’s. I ate there with Mom and Dad 25 years ago, and it was as delicious as it was back then. Alison was so exhausted that she fell asleep at the table. We’ve been up since 4 a.m. this morning, so we’re all exhausted. It’s time for bed. Tomorrow, we will experience San Francisco’s Chinatown

Millions Alone

I remember her eyes. She was lying flat in the bed, staring up at me. Her gaze never wavered. The eyes were dark, and seemed like they took up far too much of her face. She was thin. And so still. Except for an occasional heavy blink, she was motionless, and so was I. It seemed as if she wanted something from me, but I was not allowed to pick her up, so I stroked the tiny arm and tried to ignore the holes in her dirty sweater.

I wish I had a picture of her but they wouldn’t allow that either. This was my first visit to an orphanage. Five years earlier I adopted baby girl from China, but I never saw where she spent the first year of her life. The caretakers brought the babies to us in a hotel conference room after they had traveled four hours on rugged roads to get to us. But now, here I was at the Gence Babies Home in Azerbaijan. I stood over that crib and couldn’t move. I was immobilized by the simple and obvious fact that this baby had no one to call her own and she was one of millions. She was, in someone’s book, nothing more than a number. As I stood over her metal crib, I saw my daughter in those coal black eyes. She was born in another country and culture far from Azerbaijan, but she, too had lay in a crib like this – alone, and without anyone who could call her daughter. And I saw myself. For twenty-one days, I was alone, until my adopted parents came to bring me home.

The country of Azerbaijan is closed to international adoptions and there are few domestic adoptions, so it is likely that the little baby girl with the big brown eyes is still there, if she is alive (even the smallest illness can take the life of an orphan in a third world country). The orphanage will probably be her home until she is moved to the Gence Children’s Home, where she will stay until she is 18. Then, she will be turned out into society to fend for herself unless institutional life has taken its toll on her psyche, in which case she will be placed in a psychiatric hospital.

In some countries, life is cruel in orphanages. In other countries, babies are well cared for and if they are not adopted they are given some kind of vocational training to prepare them for life on their own after age 18. In either case, they are without parents, family, or the kind of love that gives them the foundation on which to build a life. And they are alone, even if caregivers and other orphans surround them. When I look at my own daughter, I cannot imagine her without a bedtime story, a piggyback ride and a prayer before being tucked under the covers. It’s her routine, and it sends her into the darkness of nighttime (which she isn’t so crazy about) knowing that she is safe and loved and wrapped within the many arms of her parents and siblings.

The eyes of that baby girl in Azerbaijan still haunt me, and they won’t let me go. So I pray that God will wrap His arms around the millions of orphans who linger in places they shouldn’t be. I pray they will feel His embrace, and that they will sleep in peace.

Believers without Baggage

China Road, by Rob Gifford is one of those books that I don't want to finish. I'm actually piddling around reading it, underlining, rereading sections - simply because I don't want to have to close it for the final goodbye. Gifford was the Beijing correspondent for NPR (National Public Radio) for six years. In 2005, he decided to move home to London after having been in China since 1987. As a final farewell, he decided to travel China's highway Route 312 which stretches from Shanghai, across the middle belly of the country to the border of Kazakhstan, and to broadcast reports from the route. All along the way, he was also writing this book. In the small village of Shuangzhao (pronounced Shwahng-jow), he wandered into a Protestant church. It was mostly older women, and they were waiting for the itinerant pastor to show up. When it became apparent that the pastor wasn't going to make it, several older women told Gifford that he should preach. Chinese believe that all westerners must be Christians. So they wouldn't let him off the hook, and Gifford was forced to give an off-the-cuff "sermon". He fumbled around and pulled out a scripture that was familiar to him and delivered what he believed to be a dull message. You have to read the book, even if you're not into China. It's fascinating. In the following excerpt, he's writing about the moments after his sermon, when the congregants were praying.

"There is a purity and an intensity to Christian believers in China, and it overflows in their prayers. Mention Christianity to ordinary Chinese people, and they are not burdened by visions of crusading soldiers, fornicating popes, or right-wing politicians. They have heard about this belief relatively late in the faith's long and winding history, and for them it is a matter of the heart. This is perhaps how it was supposed to be, I think to myself, as the final "Amen" rises from the congregation."

The Best places in Azerbaijan.

Going back in September!!!! Most of what we see doesn't look this nice. Our lodgings are quite rugged. We get to encounter the real Azerbaijan that the tourists don't see. Can't wait!!

Our Girls

We just finished three days of China Camp. The girls are beautiful, and so very different from one another. You might not think about the uniqueness of these girls if you were to stare out at the sea of faces – all with beautiful almond eyes, hair straight and black, smiles that light up the room. Sometimes they all look alike, and I can’t find my own child. She’s the one with the glasses slipping down her nose. But that describes about half the girls in this room. They all have two things in common. They were born in China, and they are adopted. But that’s where the similarities end. In this swarm of alikeness, they couldn’t be more different. Some are shy. Some are loud. Some are tomboys with baggy Adidas basketball shorts and t-shirts, and some are quite feminine, wearing shoes with little heels and skirts that swirl. Some girls are serious and complicated and think very deeply. And some girls just want to have fun and they don’t – as Stevie Wonder sings – “worry ‘bout a thing.” (That’s my girl, by the way).

I love China Camp when it rolls around every July because I am reminded what a blessing it all is: adoption, parenting, multicultural families and giving your heart to a little girl who was born across the world. At just the moment when the summer is waning, and it is hot and the six year-old is bored, China Camp plants itself on our calendar. And I am surrounded by all these little Chinese girls, and for the only time this year, my daughter is surrounded – completely – by other little girls who look like her. And her face, with the almond eyes, radiates pure joy. And for an instant I am transported back to the moment when I sat in a hotel conference room with eight other families waiting for the footsteps coming down the hallway. We were sitting in China waiting for our babies. And now they are here, and we are sitting in Tulsa watching our babies become young ladies. Yes, there are a few more boys now, so there are parents who are watching their baby boys become young men. And we are all blessed.

When camp ends the little girls who look so much alike scatter to the waiting arms of parents, and we will all go our separate ways again. The stories are so much the same, but also so very unique. Just like our girls.

Coming Around, Going Around

I drove into the parking lot and it hit me – the pit in the stomach, ton of bricks sort of thing. This is my high school. The last time I left the parking lot of this place I swore that I was never returning. I promised myself that I was getting out of here – moving on to places that were more exotic, eclectic, artistic, enriching. Actually, I just wanted out of town. I’m not really exotic, and probably far less artistic than I’d like to think. But I was leaving and not coming back.

I’m back.

Actually, it isn’t me who is back, but my son. My precious seventeen year-old first-born son. If I wanted all the best for myself, you can be sure that I wanted only the best for this kid. So how did we end up back HERE? At Memorial High School. Home of the Chargers. I tried to leave. But because I am an only child, I felt some pull to be where my parents are. And because I don’t like suburbia and we couldn’t afford midtown, I ended up back in the old neighborhood. But I still found a way to get my kids out. We put them in the magnet schools, which boast high test scores, the Intercollegiate Baccalaureate program and a racially integrated student population. The magnet high school is listed in Newsweek’s Top 100 High Schools (50-something). My daughter is thriving in this environment, despite the fact that it is on the other side of the city. My son just wants to come home. This is his decision. He wants to go to the neighborhood high school. The one that is five minutes from our house. The one where his best friend will be attending. It just so happens it’s the high school that I blew a good-bye kiss to on the last day of school and the place where I swore I would never return. But here we are. Pulling into the parking lot and I’m feeling a little queasy. Is this what they mean when they tell you “never say never?” or “what comes around goes around?” Maybe so, but here I am, willing to do whatever it takes for my kid. If this is the place he wants to be, then it’s the place I’ll be. Go Chargers...

China Plan B

Alison has been begging to go to China. For about six months she's been asking when we can go, and when we kept saying we weren't sure, she started telling people we were going next week. Not technically "next week", but whenever she talked about it, she always said we were going "next week." Sort of like the sign in front of the Mexican restaurant we love that says "Free Margaritas Tomorrow." Next week never came. But she kept holding out hope. So we made a decision. No, we're not going to China, but we are going to Chinatown...in San Francisco. We booked a flight to S.F. for....week after next. Not exactly next week yet, but it will be on Sunday! Colin and Erin will be at camp, so it will just be the three of us. Alison is thrilled that she will get us all to herself. We're planning on visiting Alcatraz, seeing a S.F. Giants game, and hanging out at Fisherman's Wharf. I'm ready to escape this perpetual, never-ending rain.

So, as we were talking about great it will be to walk around Chinatown and how it's going to feel like we are in China, Alison reminded us that, alas, there is NO Great Wall in San Francisco. True. China Plan B isn't perfect, but it's better than hanging around here waiting for the skies to clear. By the way, gotta check that San Francisco forecast....next week.