Mama C and the Boys Adoption, blended family, blending families, Choice Parenting, Co-parenting, Donor, Parenting, Poetry, race, Race related, Reflection, Transracial Family

Mama C Calls It Forth

Recently I went away to one of my favorite places in the world (so far) for a weekend with a single-mama friend to meditate, write, swim, laugh, and listen to God.

I connect to my visionary spirit, and my soul in this healing spot that I’ve been coming to since I was seven. When I get quiet, and a respite from my parenting modality I return in a palpable way to what I know to be true.

This time that truth cleary took shape in three distinct areas:

  • First is a deepening commitment to my sons feeling celebrated and accepted for exactly WHO THEY ARE today. (Middle school requires ferverent monitoring. Who are you-vs. who do you begin to believe your peers/teachers/ society or family says you SHOULD be.) This demands my being fully present, compassionate and flexible.
  • Second I heard that I will return to my dream of creating a one woman performative event (monologue/story telling+poetry) celebrating and exposing my first fifty years on the planet, and the events and people who shaped it.
  • Third, a new direction calls for my fifteen years as a transracial adoptive, biological, single and partnered parent. I will be unveilling this in more detail soon, but for the time-being it is already thrilling to announce it simply as a “Coming soon: Mama C Coaching and Consulting”. How can you help? If a particular post, conversation, article, or anything “Mama C” has been of help to you on your transracial/adoptive single or partnered/parenting/blending/ donor or other journey will you consider leaving me a comment I could use on my promotional materials?

I look forward to hearing from you, and hope everyone can create a little quiet space for themselves in the near future.

Mama C and the Boys Parenting, Reflection, Transracial Family, Uncategorized

The Lady of the Lake strikes again (slideshow)

Leaving the lake where we spend an extended week every summer, is harder and harder on me each year. I’ve been going to that lake since I was seven. It has not changed a lick. The four cabins were purchased by the same folks who own them today-the year I was born.

I took about a fifteen year hiatus-from around age 17-32 not knowing I’d ever go back to this gentle childhood oasis.  I rediscovered it, in the dead of a Maine winter, at my mom’s suggestion when I yearned to get away on a writing retreat in the warmer weather. This was over ten years ago. Knowing I didn’t need my own cabin for a week I came up with a wild idea to host a retreat of sorts for fellow creatives and lake lovers the following summer. Within weeks of putting it to paper, and emailing friends the cabins were full.  Then for the next five years the concept grew, and I hosted an artist-musician-writer-creatives retreat for over twenty one week each summer.

We spent the day on our own doing our artsy thang, and then met at the dock at 5:00 for appetizers,  wine, and conversation. Each night a different participant had the dock and dinner prep duty. We shared two cabins, and countless hours of laughter, revelations, insights, struggles and successes.

To this day, aside from Sam and Marcel, I consider what I organized  and facilitated there to be one of my greatest accomplishments. Several albums, manuscripts,  and gallery shows had their humble beginnings there. Over twenty women spent at least a half week there at one point. My inner Left Bank Parisian Salon Hostess was rediscovered on that dock.

That lake  (also known to those in the know as “the Lady of the Lake” ) is also where I prayed for an answer to this question; “Am I ready to begin a family on my own through adoption?”

The Lady of the Lake is also where or to whom  I prayed for an answer to this question; “Am I ready to attempt to bring a child into my life with the help of a donor?”

This time I asked  if I was ready to merge my life, and the lives of my children with another in the near future? She is always so wise in her decisions about my future. As I swam with the loons, and watched an eagle carrying a large branch overhead, I seemed a little closer to knowing what might be next for all of us.

A few pictures included below to help you see why this place is so insanely magical to all of us now.  Of the ten days there I spent about half of them alone with the boys. It was what we all needed to reconnect with ourselves, each other, and the natural world. Sam’s swim lessons over the past several years have clearly paid off, and Marcel’s caution around the water was reassuring actually. The hour of “quiet time” every day meant we all had time to read (Sam read TWO full length graphic novels), paint, mediate, and build with blocks, or sticks and pebbles and other discoveries. There was no television, or electronics except my camera and phone.

It was a very sweet gift to share the place with Shrek too. He completely got it. He often does.

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