So Long, and Thanks for All the Unkers

(Curlews and avocets on the Pacific shore)

My eldest daughter leaves today. I've seen her only a handful of times during her life, once briefly as a newborn, then later in her early twenties since we've reunited. She has been here for a two-week visit during her summer vacation, and now she's off for a trek through Southern California and possibly a meeting with her birth father.

(Annika in hiking mode)

I had hoped, when I started this blog last year, to meet other birth mothers and talk with them about the profound experience of relinquishing a child. In the past 25 years I've been able to share my birth-mother story with several adopted people, but not with anyone who knows what it's like to give up a child. This past year, I did meet a birth mother who reunited with her grown son, and that conversation via email was glorious.

When Annika and I get together, it's an ongoing process of discovery. We compare our toes, our thoughts, our personalities, our histories. We find points of contact and points of divergence. She gets to know her extended birth family and her roots. I get to know her. We stay up late most nights with our mutual fascination. I'm proud of her, and she's glad I'm one of her moms. It's a strange and beautiful relationship.

(View of Morro Rock in Morro Bay, California)

(The coast in Montana de Oro State Park)

She helped me with the Totalfeckineejit's Poetry Bus assignment this week. I've been collecting word verifications for a while now, intending to use them as my prompt next week when it's my turn to drive the Bus. But I've been preempted. NanU the Science Girl Traveler has challenged the Bus riders this week to write a poem in the odd language of word verification. So I gave Annika my list and she chose the words for me to use. It was a blast to invent subjects, verbs, and predicates out of words like slitter, coblego, and yeliale. You will find other creations here.

The Swan Song

Remonia sang
and lifted high her jugaries
to the god of Puronomb.
She beseeched him to relent
to withdraw the brilb
tormenting broken unkers
in her town. Down
slittered birds, weaving
wheapsins in the air.
Where yeliales flew
now harmelas drew
their final breath.
Remonia sonemt sadly,
marking how coatina
was the sky,
and her last coblego
echoed as the god
drew nigh.

(The coastal range, central California)