Essays, Fiction, Poetry

The first arrow attacked my psyche in 1977 during a fundraiser at Mr. Silks 3rd Base

A month to immerse myself in German life.

I didn’t expect a DNA test to change my life.

Fall had just set in, 1987. My family tree was shedding its leaves,

The glitzy mall I picked for our meeting spot hadn’t aged welled in the 20 years since my last visit.

A G.I. baby, I was born in Korea

I was born in the early morning hours of March 6, at New York Hospital on Sixty-Ninth Street.

In 2018, I took a DNA test for fun.

I shake the hands of the various deans. My two favorite

When I was 38, after both parents had died, I found out my mother wasn’t my birthmother.

It’s almost my birthday (sort of) and I’m turning 40, the same age my mother was when she had me (possibly).

On Saturday Dave and I are eager to throw off the week’s stress with a spring bike ride along Portland’s waterfront.

Mariska Hargitay is arguably one of the most famous women in America, if not in the world. The star of the longest-running prime-time live action series in television history, she plays Olivia Benson, a tough yet deeply compassionate sex crimes detective who, in every episode, encounters people after unspeakable tragedy—victims, survivors, and loved ones of violent crimes, whose secrets have been publicly laid bare in the most brutal fashion. Beautiful and intelligent, Benson is devoted to her work and guarded about a secret in her own past—that she was conceived as a consequence of rape. In her public life, the 61-year old Hargitay exudes warmth and humor. She’s known as a tender, yet strong woman, a loyal friend, and a loving wife and mother of three. Photographs of her with her husband, actor Peter Hermann, inspire envious Instagram memes with captions like “Everyone needs someone who looks at them like he looks at her.” She’s also a philanthropist, a certified rape counselor, and, as the founder of the Joyful Heart Foundation, a fierce advocate for survivors of child abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence. But in her wrenching documentary film, My Mom Jayne, Hargitay pulls back the curtain and reveals herself to be the beating heart of a family enmeshed in tragedy and trauma on multiple levels—a family that shouldered the weight of secrets until those secrets could no longer be borne. Deeply sad, the film is also tender, sweet, and, ultimately, uplifting. Like Hargitay, her mother, Jayne Mansfield, was one of the most iconic figures of her time—as Edward R. Murrow observed, “the most photographed woman in show business.” A world-famous sex symbol, she reluctantly leaned into a pinup persona in hopes it would offer an opportunity for her to become known instead for her keen intelligence, acting ability, and prodigious musical talent. She tried to reinvent herself, but couldn’t break out of the mold she’d cast herself in. Unhappy with her career and struggling in her marriage to Mickey Hargitay, a Hungarian bodybuilder and former Mr. Universe, she fell prey to alcohol and drugs and became involved with men who abused her. When she was 34, she died in a car accident. Three-year-old Mariska and two of her brothers survived in the backseat. Although she had a loving stepmother after Mickey remarried, she was greatly affected by her mother’s absence. At the same time she was embarrassed by her legacy and wary to explore her life. As she grew older, with no clear memory of Jayne, she became driven to learn more about her and during the pandemic became a real-life detective, tracking down vast collections of photos, letters, memorabilia, public records, contemporary interviews, and fan mail. Hargitay conceived the documentary as way to fill the hole left in her heart, to learn about her mother what she couldn’t bear to learn when she was younger. Click on image to read more.

By Michelle Talsma I met my younger self for coffee … well, iced chai with soy, at the campus Starbucks. “It’s still our favorite drink to order here?” she asked. “Yes, we get light ice now to make the most of it, because it’s still pricey,” I said with a smile. We hug and sit in a well-lit corner. Outside, the campus of Northern Arizona University is woodsy and gorgeous—green, alive with students scattering back and forth. We both love it here. She’s tired and rushed. In college, she’s taking 18 to 21 credits a semester, too many extracurriculars to keep track of, trying to make sure she builds a future for herself. She has a point to prove yet never feels like she’s doing enough. Some things never change. “She never gets sober does she…” She just asks, point blank, no filter. It’s not really a question. She knows. “No, she doesn’t, I’m so sorry…” A couple of years earlier, at 17, we left a note on our mom’s dining room table. “When you’re able to be a mom, give me a call,” it said. She never makes that call. “Does she ever meet our kids?” she asks. I know she’s worried about navigating that. Like me, she worries constantly about how to make others feel comfortable and seen. She chameleons to others, sliding in and out of lives and relationships, always on a quest to make others’ lives better and to find a place that feels like home. That trait calms down over the years but it never fully leaves. We’re working on it; always working on it. “You won’t have to worry about that…” her eyes don’t change, she knows. “But your dad meets them for a time, and you’ll treasure the photos always.” “I’m a mom?! We’re moms??!” Her face lights up and we both break into tears. I’m not allowed to give specifics, so I use “them.” Life will hit her hard in the quest to be a mom; she needs hope now more than exact answers. “Yes, and it’s as amazing and healing as you think it will be. And you rock it. They’re amazing. Black hair. Brown eyes. Your entire world and it’s the best experience ever. I promise.” I know her and all she wants to be is a writer and a mom, so I let that slip too… “You’ll be published nationally. Locally. Two hardcovers. It gives you the flexibility to be there for every moment of their childhood. Being a mom—it’ll be what keeps you going. You’ll be so grateful for it sometimes that your heart will swell with joy.” I let her soak that in and I feel like I’ve already said too much. But, right now, she needs hope more than anything. She knows plenty of grief. “Do you want to know more?” I ask. “I just need a moment,” she says. I do, too. I don’t know how to tell her to prepare for a life with as many bumps as blessings. How do you tell someone that at 22 their mom will pass? At 24, their dad will follow almost to the day. At 35, they’ll find out that their dad isn’t their biological dad and their world will turn upside down and inside out. Click on image to read more.

By Kathleen Kirstein I thought the writing prompt “There Was A Secret” sounded good when I first heard it. I could easily imagine writing about it. However, I’ve changed my mind as I sit here around 4 pm, finally drinking my morning coffee.     When I first woke up this morning, I started writing this piece in my head, as that’s my process. The more I wrote, the angrier I got. The anger may have been smoldering in the deep abyss of every brain cell since last night. I think I was triggered by something in the adoption community, reminding me I don’t fit in.     Sometimes it’s tough being the late discovery in a sea of people who’ve always known they were adopted. I can’t relate to the life experience of always knowing. I can barely relate to being adopted because my brain still wants to toss that little fact aside. No, that never happened because if it did, my inner critic would tell me, “Your first 49 years were wrong.”  The years before a free trip to Mexico and the need for a passport outed my adoption. This led me to search for the answer to why my birth certificate was filed 14 months after my birth. The answer was I was adopted at 43 days old from a maternity home in Vermont to a family in New Hampshire.    I want to throw up because I didn’t even know my kids were the first biological family to me, the first people I met with my DNA. Somehow, that makes me feel unworthy and not to be trusted with anything because I couldn’t be trusted with my own true story. I was simply not someone important enough to know the secret.    I realized in my late teens that my body type and problem-solving skills differed significantly from those of the family who raised me. I know now I was invalidated when I asked all the adults in my family the dreaded question, “Was I adopted?” I took on the “you’re crazy” response and made it my truth, as no other truth from the adults in my world was forthcoming to change the narrative. Again, I am not worthy of honest and truthful information. A secret must remain a secret at all costs.     I pay the costs daily in various ways. It might be a trauma response here and there. It might be in the form of a non-adoptive friend at Mahjong talking about how great adoption is and how it’s a great gift. I stay silent as I have learned the price I pay when I try to educate these individuals on another point of view. My words of education only lead to my getting a backlash of all the ways I am wrong. “You didn’t have to grow up in an orphanage.” They have no clue that my first 43 days of life were spent in that orphanage they speak about. If I push the issue, I will leave the game feeling inadequate and unimportant, and my feelings of worthlessness reinforced once again because they can’t hear the truth of this adoptee’s life experience.   Click on image to read more.

By Ilene Alexander Old stories and new stories are essential: They tell us who we are, and they enable us to survive. We thank all the ancestors, and we thank all those people who keep on telling stories generation after generation, because if you don’t have the stories, you don’t have anything. – Leslie Marmon Silko You likely know the 20 Questions game in which players ask yes/no questions to identify a particular person, place, animal, object, or concept one of the players has in mind. A game for passing time with family while travelling or among friends learning a bit more about each other’s lives and interests while just hanging out, this game focuses on discovering answers to trivial questions. An amusing pastime that evokes good feelings, it seldom leads to forming memorable insights about people. I have in mind a different set of 20 questions, the Do You Know Survey developed by Marshall Duke, Robin Fivush, and Sara Duke. Their questions cluster into two broad categories—family origins and histories and birth and family trait stories. Overall, these who, what, when, where, why queries focus on basics such as parents’ and grandparents’ growing up, meeting, and marrying stories; their recollections of good and bad experiences in school, work, life, and health across generations; and learning appreciatively about family members’ national, ethnic, cultural, and/or immigration backgrounds. The key factor is how the stories are transmitted—through consistent, undistracted conversations during which family members listen and engage with multiple perspective-taking stories over many years. These regular gatherings create opportunities for children to hear a family’s history, build emotional strength, foster resilience and well-being, as well as develop a sense of self-identity within the intergenerational narratives. The power of family storytelling lies in its ongoing, meaningful presence rather than in isolated moments of information sharing. Given the gift of oscillating stories—the “life has ups and downs” stories told overtime by multiple people—I believe I’ve navigated, dare I say enjoyed, my DNA discovery because my raising up families sparked curiosity to seek stories however family shaped itself. Now, let me tell you a bit about how I came to realize old and new stories as essential for sense-making of the new DNA-provided stories. Click on image to read more.

By Laura Jenkins I first saw Wicked on stage in 2009, while my husband and I were honeymooning in San Francisco. Though it didn’t make me a superfan, I loved it enough to take family members to see it —on two separate occasions—when the tour came to town. But before the curtain fell for the third time, I found myself wishing it would hurry up and be over. I’d had enough.  So when my daughter invited me to see the film, I hesitated. Did I really want to sit through it a fourth time? No. But since she and her kids were only in town for 36 hours, I went. And by the end of the movie, I was so overcome with emotion I sat on the verge of tears through nearly ten minutes of credits trying to understand why it affected me so deeply. Two days later I saw it again. Within the week I preordered my digital copy. What happened to the woman who said she was finished with Wicked?    In a word, Elphaba.    Cynthia Erivo took a character I thought I knew and cracked her wide open. I’d seen three brilliant actors play Elphaba on stage, but until the movie I’d never really seen her. Not only did Erivo’s intimate portrayal give me a deeper understanding of her story, it also shifted the narrative in a way that brought a great deal of clarity to my own. The first thing that struck me when I saw Elphaba on an IMAX screen was her greenness. Of course I already knew what color she was. But seeing her up close made me think about why she was green: like me, she was the offspring of an affair. Her viridescent skin was a dead giveaway that she and her sister had different fathers. I don’t have statistics to back this up, but when people in monogamous relationships betray that commitment, they typically want to keep it hidden. And that’s pretty difficult to do with an accidental baby around—especially if she’s green. Children of affairs are, by nature, whistleblowers. We tell secrets by simply existing. Elphaba carried the stigma of her parents’ tryst on the outside. When I saw her on screen, it occurred to me that green is a perfect way to describe how I always felt on the inside—tarnished. Tainted. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a gnawing sense I didn’t deserve to be here. My sister told me the truth about my biological father when I was 21, but I felt the immense weight of the secret long before that. Since I couldn’t get anyone to talk about it, I drew my own conclusions: there must something about me that was too awful to tell. Was I born innately bad? Click on image to read more.

By Kristine Neff I first recognized love, felt enveloped by it, gave it with gasping waves of pain, emotionless fear, and exhausted defeat a few months before I turned seventeen. I also, somehow, knew it would prove to be a position rather than a feeling or a state of mind. It was just suddenly there. Without a tingle around the edges to mark its beginning or a warning of its power to collapse my entire self. The slight fluttering of my twin daughters in my womb, at sixteen, stirred up a fire, like leaves in a burn pile in fall. The leaves slowly crackling on the surface, smoldering. But if something happened to cause these leaves to stir, flames would begin to consume them. As the embers would burn deeper into this pile of leaves, the fire would get stronger and stronger, out of control, but slowly, the more it was stirred. My body, mind, and soul were burning much the same as these girls stirred inside me. I was their host. Their protector. Their mother. Mom. Love would prove to cause more pain than the shock and fear caused by a long painful labor would. Labor—a ripping apart of these smoldering leaves to reveal a raging inferno. My love for these two tiny babies wasn’t planned, it just simply was. The intense need to protect them, to make sure they were healthy, that I was healthy—the desire to remove anything from our lives that could have harmed them, or scared them, was overwhelming and all consuming. I knew that after I did all I could do, I would leave the hospital alone. After enduring the shock, pain, and silent agony of their birth, the only thing I’d have left of us, we three, who once were, would be love. Love was just there. It wasn’t a tool to get through it or a trophy to show off. It was what we had been through, what we endured, we three. It was me, making sure to have them as close to me as possible until time ran out, no matter what price I would later pay for these few intimate moments with them. Me, making promises and trying to ensure that those two little girls would somehow continue to carry the same beats of their hearts as mine; no matter how many miles, years, and closed doors, there would be between us. Love wasn’t mine to give them, or for them to accept. It was a bond we shared, a scar we share. Click on image to read more.

By Maelyn Schramm Transracial adoption isn’t easy. It isn’t glamorous. It isn’t romantic. Transracial adoption is messy. It’s hard. It’s emotional. The impact of transracial adoption is woven into every fiber of my being; every detail of my story; every stitch of the tapestry that shows my life’s journey. I’m Maelyn, a 30-year-old Dallasite adopted from China at 14-months-old. My family includes two Caucasian parents and two Caucasian brothers, between whom I fall. Although my brothers are also adopted, their domestic and open adoption stories are far different than my own. After all, isn’t every adoption story unique? Isn’t every adopted child exquisite? Isn’t every adopted child’s journey extraordinary? My story, my journey, includes ignoring my biological culture as a child through emerging adulthood. And then finally coming to terms with, embracing, and celebrating my biological culture, my transracial identity, in my mid-20s. As a child and young adult, I didn’t dare come across as too Asian. I surrounded myself with Caucasian friends, I ate normal American foods (burgers and fries) and avoided any odd Asian dishes (sweet rice balls and many other dishes I did not know as I refused to indulge in them). I immersed myself in my Baptist upbringing. I put my foot down about learning Chinese and dropped out of Chinese school early on. I hid my good grades. I joined the middle school band instead of orchestra. Despite their genuine and honest efforts, I rejected my adopted parents’ attempts to immerse me in Chinese culture, to expose me to Asian American friends, to explore who I truly am. But then COVID hit and so did widespread Asian hatred. George Floyd’s murder, increasing racial tension in America, and all of the intricate, undeniable ugliness that impacted the non-white community overcame my thoughts and emotions. These current events snapped me into reality: I looked Asian because I am Asian. I was at risk of becoming a victim of Asian hate. And due to my Asian exterior—despite my lack of social identity—I dove into educating myself on my biological culture; I dove into embracing who I am: Chinese American. The exploration into my Chinese heritage and adoption coincided with Asian American-Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May. I educated myself on Asian American history and its prominent figures. I reached out to Asian acquaintances. For the first time, I felt honored to be Chinese. For the first time, I felt like I found a community I belonged to, a community I rejected long ago. As I said, coming to terms with my non-white identity was messy. It was hard. It was emotional. It was a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. I still consider the exploration of my transracial identity lifelong, ever evolving. Click on image to read more.

By Carrie Anne Tocci A few years ago, I subbed a fifth-grade class. Lemony Snicket, Harry Potter, and Matilde book clubs populated the classroom. These titles featured orphans. I’ve never considered that I was one. My story begins with my arrival to my first home, at two weeks old. But that’s before the shushing around adoption started. The first shushing followed the Avon lady’s visit when I was nearly eight years old. Mountain-like, at the end of our handmade wooden table complete with tree knots, she sat in Dad’s usual seat, and I stood near my mom’s lap at the other end. Instead of packing up to leave after we ordered Sweet Honesty for me or Hawaiian Ginger for my nanny, she said something like, “You don’t look adopted.” Speechless, my mom froze. For the first time, not yet ten years old, I confront a reality: people outside of our immediate family know that I am adopted. A label stuck on with permanent glue though I suddenly feel impermanent. I came from elsewhere. But no one knows where. A closed adoption mystery to carry into adulthood. Tonight, members of my Adoptee Voices writing group share that there are whole books about adoptee murderers. Jeffrey Dahmer’s name pops into my head, and I recall hearing he was adopted. A quick Internet search does not confirm this, though I remember the rumor. Even rumors around adopted people, infamous ones, are hard to place or confirm. After the Avon lady’s visit, my mom wanted to protect me. That’s what I think today. This is my explanation for why she told me, “Don’t tell anyone you’re adopted,” shortly afterward. I recall hearing this request after I followed her to the basement, where she pulled warm clothes from the dryer. When I think back to this incident and its antecedent, the Avon Lady’s comment, my memories conjure my surprise. Italian-American like us, the Avon Lady was a respected women in our church who baked ziti and lasagna for parish events. Maybe she thought this cultural connection gave her the right to interject her observation. Back then, I didn’t know my true ethnicity. I considered myself Italian-American, not yet thinking of this culture as borrowed. My dark shiny hair, brown eyes, and olive-toned skin matched with my parents and their sons, my brothers, who weren’t adopted. Culturally, this is who I am. As I grew, adoption popped up and remained subterranean. Obscured just enough to give me a scare. Maybe this is why when I see an unexpected shadow or movement of light in my apartment or on the street, I jump expecting a mouse or a rat. Then and now, I never know when adoption or an adoption-related event might pop out. I get scared easily. Sometimes, there’s humor in this. My screams sound pre-recorded, reminding me of an old commercial: is it live or is it Memorex? Or both? Sometimes individual screams stay inside–stuffed. Expressed or muffled, the track played is separation anxiety or fright that comes with the cool wash of isolation and abandon—a tightening—imagine an infant’s clenched fists, a face scrunched not yet warmed by tears. But there are tears of laughter, sometimes, too. About 10 years ago, a friend and I took our best friend’s kids to a restaurant when she was away. Her eight-year daughter tapped my shoulder to playfully startle me when she returned from the bathroom. Poor girl. My piercing scream brought the chef out of the kitchen. Customers froze. She and her brother, both horrified and entertained. We still cry laughing remembering this scare. I can now say that it frightened me when my mom told me not to tell people that I was adopted. She added, “Your Other Mother may want you back.” My mom doesn’t remember saying this; could this have been a tape inside my head? Was this her fear or my fantasy? But I have a clear recollection. No matter what was said, this is what I heard. Click on image to read more.