As the Holidays Approach...
A wholehearted welcome!
Whether or not adopted, we may have mixed feelings about the days ahead. Anxiety may accompany shopping and crowds (catalogs--just saying), COVID, the weather, family travel, and so on.
Leaves lose their glorious color, browning under threatening skies. If there are little ones around, they lift our spirits. But, thoughts may return to the elders who have passed on. My adoptive mother, Agnes, died a year ago July, and I'll miss my habit of spending time with her in Pennsylvania, our former home.
Dad moved Mom and my grandmother to California for his last government position when I was in my mid-twenties, and struggling in my first marriage. They lived there for twenty-five years. I recovered and remarried, but never reconciled with my father. I brought Mom east to live near my husband and me when Dad died, and because she needed help with my nana. Those times demanded my stepping up--I owed it to them both for the loving care she and Nana had given me. Albeit her difficult expression of affection toward me, I know my adoptive mother loved me.
I want to let you know that I have re-activated my Blogger account. It had been inactive for months while I focused on writing my new memoir. And it has been reborn with a fresh name.
No worries! I don't intend to overload you with missives! In SC Ruth Ann, Adopted Writer I'll record my continued efforts since 1993 to glean information about my birth family. I found my biological mother and maternal family in spite of the South Carolina sealed birth record law. (There is new legislation proposed, which won't likely make it better for adoptees.)
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My new memoir, to be released in early 2022, traces my stories of loss and recovery of identity and heritage. I'm so excited to share it with you!
I Must Have Wandered: An Adopted Air Force Daughter Recalls
is a lyrical hybrid that reflects, in creative non-fiction, on my very early days, impressions of early childhood, my life as an Air Force adopted daughter, and the impetus to search for my biological origin. My memoir is a collage about a baby girl born and relinquished in 1951, a life of loss and separation, and privilege.
I hope my book benefits women and men who have been similarly touched by adoption, as well as those who have wondered, will find meaning in my personal stories of loss, quest, and recovery, of self and identity, and the joy of connection.
Thank you for continuing to follow me on my writing journey there!
