yearning for the lost mother of childhood

Gradutaion is right around the corner. Three more days and I will no longer be considered a student! I will be saying goodbye to Philadelphia and 'hello' to Connecticut once again. I'm going to be a grown up! It's exciting and scary and sad and amazing and every emotion under the sun all rolled into one day.

Amidst the excitement, however, there will be a touch of longing. S*, my first mother, won't be in attendence. This is a fact I have been struggling with for a few months now. She has held an open invitation since the summer, but seems unable to take the time off of work. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I understand completely. Work is work. You have to go. There's some mountain lion trapped in resedential Las Vegas who needs her. But at the same time, I need her.

In 2006, when I was first reconnected with S*, one of the first trains (floods?) of thought I experienced was the instant excitement that she would see me graduate. What child doesn't want their mother present at their graduation? It's just something I always assumed would happen.. that she would be there.

There's not much else I can say, except that I will miss her on Friday; that I will carry her in my locket and it will have to suffice. And that I hope to God my a-mom and S* uphold their promise that the first time they meet will not be on my wedding day.

there must be a way to bring the two together...

I had my final class today; the last class ever. It was a Marketing and Promotions final critique: 12 judges sat in the classroom while we each presented our materials and portfolio and were then judged on our "packages". I went in confident and assured. I came out in tears.

They loved my commercial work; they hated my logo, but loved the photographs. We disagreed on individual images and their success, but everything was going smoothly...until someone mentioned the alternate postcard (which bore the image to the left). The text on the back of the card was rusted and weathered. It is a complete 180 from my commercial postcard. The consensus was that "any joe schmo off the street could have taken it." They claimed it was the token "first quarter" photograph that every amature needs to take to get it out of their system. I asked them to please refer to my provided artist's statement before commenting further. They did. It was silent.

The same judge who first noted the stark difference in images spoke up again. "So this is something separate from your commercial work?" I replied, "Absolutely. My fine art and my commercial work are two separate entities entirely. I work extremely hard to make sure they never cross." He asked why. I was thoroughly confused. I made a joke in asking him to please re-read the artist's statement. His reply was this: "So essentially you are two different people when you photograph." "I have to be," is all I said...and I began to cry.

I don't think that judge realized how his observation affected me. I tried my best to smile and blink back the tears that were fighting so hard to flow. I was failing miserably and no one understood why. For a brutal fifteen minutes we went back and forth: he insisted that I find the way to merge the two, because "surely, if a family with an adopted child realizes how passionate you are about this cause, they won't care either way and in the end will still hire you." I told him that he was, of course, entitled to his opinion but that it was perhaps naive and ill-informed.

How could anyone not affected by adoption ever fully realize: I am two different people entirely.

you're not even really my sister

A friend from Connecticut came to visit for the weekend. It was refreshing because it's been years since I have been able to play 'tourist' in this city. We set out toward Independence Mall to hop on a double decker tour bus. We bought our tickets and decided to go to the bathroom before we embarked on the hour and a half city tour.

In the terminal, I waited outside and held my friends purse while she went into the ladies room. I noticed that there were quite a few families there - typical of a warm weather weekend. One little girl caught my attention in particular: she couldn't have been older than five years, and she was an absolute doll. She was playing ring-around-the-rosie around her adoptive mother's legs (I knew instantly that she was adopted, being that the woman she called "mother" was white and she was asian). Nothing struck me as completely out of the ordinary until the rest of her family joined her.

I saw her husband and four young boys moving in a roudy pack toward them. I began to smirk as the apparent situation became clear in my mind: Nice young couple, four boys of "their own", who "hand picked" the little girl they never had. Inwardly, I was rolling my eyes. Again, I would have thought very little of it and it probably wouldn't have stuck with me... if it weren't for the next dialogue I heard.

One of the younger boys (maybe 6 or 7 y/o) who had already been punching his older brothers, moved to the little girl and pushed her quite hard and she fell at her mother's feet. She didn't cry; she just stood up, brushed herself off and frowned, pushing him back. I laughed a little at the spectacle of it all. But that smile was wiped clear off of my face. The little boy who had initiated the fight, once he realized she was pushing back, whimpered and cried and yelled at her, "You're not even my real sister!" The mother and father both repremanded him instantly, all the while looking over their shoulders to see who heard the boy's claim. My attention was completely on the little girl.

She was now hiding behind her mother's legs, her face buired in the back of her knee, hands balled into fists and clinging to her mother's pants. I literally bit my tongue to keep from saying or doing anything. I can't tell you how many times that very same scene played out in my own life. My brother, also adopted, used to pull that card every day when we were 10-15. I think we both said some things we regret. Our neighbor called me a bastard once; I burst into tears and ran home, unable to explain to my mother why I was so upset. My heart and my thoughts are with that little girl right now, wherever she is.

what do you mean i can't see you? i can always see you

you'll be in my heart

Now, I battled with myself in whether or not to admit that I was totally watching the Disney channel last night when Tarzan came on. But the reaction I had was too intense to NOT talk about.

I hadn't seen this movie since it came out in theaters way back when. It struck me as odd the other night, because I remember having no reaction whatsoever to the movie when I was.. 12, or however old I was when I first saw it. Needless to say, at 22, it was almost comical - and I would have laughed at myself - were I not too busy crying and hanging on every word spoken in the movie.

You know (Disney version of) the story: Boy raised by gorrilas. But he has this scene where he causes some rukus and sends the elephants into a tizzy. "Kayla", the mother figure to Tarzan, defends him to her husband, saying that he's just a little boy and he meant no harm. "Kerchak", the hubby, replies with, "Give him a chance?! Kayla! Look at him!" Little Tarzan then runs off and mopes, sitting by a little pool of water. He stares at his reflection and tries to understand why he doesn't look like everyone else in the group. I almost threw up.

I just spent the better part of 12 weeks photographing a series that deals with just that feeling. At 22 years old, alone in my empty apartment, I was weeping in front of my 24 inch TV set.