Archive for May, 2016

GuatAdopt Gathering 2016

Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

I’ve posted a few snaps from our annual GuatAdopt party, taken by the multi-talented Ginny C. Everyone agreed this was the best bash ever–our kids have grown up together, and we have too. Friends pitched in with set-up and break down, and pot-lucked delicious side dishes and salads to complement Tim’s wizardry at the grill. How lucky we are to be part of this group!!! xoxox

 

 

 

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Gathering

Saturday, May 28th, 2016

Sunday is our annual party for adoptive families with ties to Guatemala. So if today you saw a crazed lady steering a mondo cart through the aisles of Costco, that was me. The weather forecast is great, and for once, we’re ahead of schedule with cleaning and prep-work. (After five+ years, I think we’ve finally gotten the system down. ) Looking forward!!! xoxox

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My mother the Rockette

Tuesday, May 24th, 2016

My son Mateo may be my mother’s biggest fan. We’ve visited Radio City Music Hall in NYC and he’s fascinated that his grandma once danced on that great stage as a Rockette.  Five shows a day, fifty weeks a year, for five years.

While searching on the internet, Mateo found this vintage photo of my mother, as she’s getting fitted for her costume for the Music Hall’s famed Christmas Show, circa 1950.

Thank you, Mateo. I love everything about this picture.

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Butterfly

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

Brag Alert: My niece, Astrid Swensen, made a Trials cut for the US Olympic Swim Team, in 200 Butterfly. (Translation: she gets to compete in a big meet to see if her time qualifies her for the team.) I love the slogan she’s standing in front of: “It’s not every 4 years; it’s every day.”

Don’t those words apply to so many things? I’m thinking parenting, family relationships, friendships, exercise, healthy eating, and because I’ve set a goal to finish the draft of a novel, writing. It’s not enough to wish the pages were finished. I’ve got to make time to sit in a chair and get focused and do the hard work. Every day.

Kind of like swimming length after length of a pool, whether you feel like it or not. There is no easy way. Only the hard work. Every day.

This is Astrid’s second Trials. She qualified the first time at fifteen years old. She’s now eighteen. Read more about the amazing Astrid in my previous blog posts: Brag Alert; My Niece, the Swimmer, and A Lesson From My Niece.

Congratulations!

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Mother’s Day

Sunday, May 8th, 2016

Feeling blessed on Mother’s Day and thinking of my children’s mothers in Guatemala. I’m happy we know both women, and are able to cultivate relationships that my children may (or may not) continue as adults. The way the relationships ultimately unfold will be my kids’ and their mothers’ decision to make, but I’m grateful the foundation has been laid.

Also: When my friend Jennifer Grant was asked by the editor of the spiritual website, Aleteia, to compile a list of five books about parenting, she suggested the list include a book about families formed by adoption. Thank you, Jennifer, thank you! (And for including Mamalita). Jennifer is a writer, speaker, and editor in the Chicago area. Among her many books, Jennifer authored a terrific one about her own adoption experience, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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Hard Red Spring by Kelly Kerney

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016

Kelly Kerney’s novel Hard Red Spring tells the history of modern Guatemala through the lives of four Americans whose stories are linked by the book’s inciting incident: the mysterious disappearance in 1902 of an ex-pat little girl.

The book is divided into four time periods critical to Guatemala’s evolution: 1902, 1954, 1983, and 1999. During each of the four periods, a story is told through a different point of view: Evie, the young ex-pat girl who disappears; Dorie, the wife of the American ambassador to Guatemala during the presidency of Jacobo Arbenz and reign of United Fruit; Lenore, the wife of an evangelical pastor sent to Guatemala to serve in a model village under Efrain Rios Montt; and Jean, the adoptive mother who returns to Guatemala for a Roots Tour with her teenage daughter, Maya.

Each of these characters is an outsider in Guatemala, and much of the book’s drama revolves around the characters’ struggles to understand and navigate their outsider status. No clear villains or heroes emerge: Everyone is flawed, and in many ways, everyone is guilty—of selfishness, of pride, of good intentions gone awry–or if not guilty, not innocent, either.

I turned every page of Hard Red Spring in awe of Kelly Kerney’s ability to seamlessly weave the history of Guatemala through the epic narrative. The plot of each of the four sections is gripping and unexpected—perhaps because the history of Guatemala is both those things–and the characters are unique and memorable. At the same time, Hard Red Spring was, for me, a difficult read. Not because of the novel’s density—although at times it was dense—but because of the underlying message: That as a citizen of the United States, I am forever an interloper to Guatemala, regardless of how fervently I wish to belong.

Despite my discomfort, I wholly recommend Hard Red Spring. It’s  a monumental and important novel that affected how I think, and won’t soon forget.

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