When we’re placed on this earth, we can stay where we are and lead a life that fits into the natural landscape, or we can push ourselves away from our landing point and turn ourselves into a completely different animal. If we wind up far enough away from where we started, we can always look back over our shoulder and see the winding path we took to get to where we are.
If you’re adopted, though, the path between where you started and where you ended is as credible as the trail you traverse when you pedal like crazy on a stationary bike. You never really went anywhere, and yet, here you are. Sometimes, you can see Point A and Point B, but they never quite seem to come together.
It’s especially hard to bring these two points together when there are no set rules for re-establishing the relationship with a biological family. I’ve been in contact with my biological family for about ten years now, and the dynamic and the strength of our connection is constantly shifting. This month, I brought my fiancé and my daughter to El Paso for my cousin’s wedding, and it was the first time I had anyone with me other than Malena. Thomas became sort of a grounding rod back to myself as I stepped into the dimension of the “other me”. The “other me” is where my name is Mari, and not Mary. I’m Mexican, but I’m not. It's "home", but it really isn’t. This is my “family”, and yet the connection between us is often as tenuous as a spider’s thread.
We flew to Dallas, and then drove 9 hours to El Paso, since gas is currently cheaper than airfare. We got off the plane and into a car, and there was nothing around us but scrub brush, trucks and oil fields. Right outside of Stink Creek Road, just west of Sweetwater, the GPS read that we should continue east and make our next turn in 421 miles. It was boring in the sense of "I wish there was something to look at", but not as bad as sitting in the lotus position for nine hours trying to quiet your mind-boring.
In El Paso, the wedding seemed more American than Mexican, but the food inbetween was exactly what it was supposed to be. Thomas had his first experience sitting at a table with a dishtowel covering the hot tortillas. He tried his first margarita (didn’t like it), and ate menudo (chiles, hominy, and tripe), (definitely didn’t like it).
Malena was a flower girl. She looked beautiful and behaved badly. She also felt a little ostracized from the other little girls, since she was the only one who didn’t speak Spanish. I felt her frustration. I watched her, wanting to jump in and run across the dance floor and chase the other girls around, but they left her in the dust and wouldn’t let her in. There’s just no explaining to a 4 year old when these things happen. She was bored, and I felt bad for her.
The bride and groom were beautiful.
I took my grandmother for her first manicure. She told me she liked Thomas because he didn’t look down on them for being poor. I don’t think Thomas truly grasped the life my grandmother’s led, crossing the river every day when my mother was young to clean houses in Texas illegally, or how they used to live in one room without a real roof, or my grandmother losing her first child to malnutrition because there just wasn’t enough to eat. And another to illness. And my mother to a gun.
I’m never really sure what they think of me or how they see my life. I’m not sure how easily Point A and Point B fit together, but I’m glad we went. And I’d give anything for a big bowl of menudo and a dishtowel full of hot flour tortillas right about now.
If you’re adopted, though, the path between where you started and where you ended is as credible as the trail you traverse when you pedal like crazy on a stationary bike. You never really went anywhere, and yet, here you are. Sometimes, you can see Point A and Point B, but they never quite seem to come together.
It’s especially hard to bring these two points together when there are no set rules for re-establishing the relationship with a biological family. I’ve been in contact with my biological family for about ten years now, and the dynamic and the strength of our connection is constantly shifting. This month, I brought my fiancé and my daughter to El Paso for my cousin’s wedding, and it was the first time I had anyone with me other than Malena. Thomas became sort of a grounding rod back to myself as I stepped into the dimension of the “other me”. The “other me” is where my name is Mari, and not Mary. I’m Mexican, but I’m not. It's "home", but it really isn’t. This is my “family”, and yet the connection between us is often as tenuous as a spider’s thread.
We flew to Dallas, and then drove 9 hours to El Paso, since gas is currently cheaper than airfare. We got off the plane and into a car, and there was nothing around us but scrub brush, trucks and oil fields. Right outside of Stink Creek Road, just west of Sweetwater, the GPS read that we should continue east and make our next turn in 421 miles. It was boring in the sense of "I wish there was something to look at", but not as bad as sitting in the lotus position for nine hours trying to quiet your mind-boring.
In El Paso, the wedding seemed more American than Mexican, but the food inbetween was exactly what it was supposed to be. Thomas had his first experience sitting at a table with a dishtowel covering the hot tortillas. He tried his first margarita (didn’t like it), and ate menudo (chiles, hominy, and tripe), (definitely didn’t like it).
Malena was a flower girl. She looked beautiful and behaved badly. She also felt a little ostracized from the other little girls, since she was the only one who didn’t speak Spanish. I felt her frustration. I watched her, wanting to jump in and run across the dance floor and chase the other girls around, but they left her in the dust and wouldn’t let her in. There’s just no explaining to a 4 year old when these things happen. She was bored, and I felt bad for her.
The bride and groom were beautiful.
I took my grandmother for her first manicure. She told me she liked Thomas because he didn’t look down on them for being poor. I don’t think Thomas truly grasped the life my grandmother’s led, crossing the river every day when my mother was young to clean houses in Texas illegally, or how they used to live in one room without a real roof, or my grandmother losing her first child to malnutrition because there just wasn’t enough to eat. And another to illness. And my mother to a gun.
I’m never really sure what they think of me or how they see my life. I’m not sure how easily Point A and Point B fit together, but I’m glad we went. And I’d give anything for a big bowl of menudo and a dishtowel full of hot flour tortillas right about now.
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