healing (the end of an era)

You may think I’m referring to the new era I hope will be ushered in with a new president — one who is intelligent and embraces critical thinking, who listens and makes well reasoned decisions, who displays grace under pressure, and inspires new hope for a better future. And I am. 

But I am also referring to the end of another era — our struggle to conceive — and the new hope of parenthood through adoption. (Yes, I can tie nearly anything to infertility. Wait for it…) 

Wednesday night we had the great fortune to see an amazing musician from West Africa as part of a local jazz festival. While I love his and other music from Mali (his home), I had never seen him play before and it was a new and different experience for us.

We were lucky to hear a talk he gave beforehand, in which he told how his traditional music has been passed down in his village for 700 years, how the player is born into it and becomes not just a musician but an ambassador, storyteller, historian, problem-solver, and sage. He spoke of the universal nature of music and improvisation, and how when he sits to play his instrument — a 21-string handmade kora harp — he is open to divine inspiration. For him, playing is truly a spiritual act and a path to god. It was a magical evening. 

He began with a simple statement: “Hello New America!” How grateful he was to witness such a historic time in the U.S., he said, as he reminded us that the whole world was watching and cheering. He thanked America for being ready to embrace such important “change.” It was about time, he said. “Thank god.”

Listening to this man speak — in his ceremonial African garb and with spirit shining through his core — reinforced everything I’d been feeling all day. I had been weepy with emotion and gratitude that such a decisive majority of Americans were (finally) ready to come together to change the course of our history. That we could reject the politics of division in favor of unity. That we could rise above small-mindedness to tackle the enormous problems we face. That we know we can and should do better. Yes we can. 

“Never looking back,” he said. “Always moving forward.” Putting the past behind is important to help “the healing.” Indeed. 

Then he played a beautiful new song he had just written hours earlier, dedicated to Our New America. As his fingers caressed his strings — just as those of his ancestors did for 71 generations before him — the gentle hypnotic melodies carried through the air as an offering, a gift. I sat there transfixed, taking in each flurry of notes. I was transported to some ethereal space and time as I felt my breath and the marginal thoughts in my mind receded. 

It was then that the full weight of his words sunk in. That which I know to be true but is still a struggle. “Never looking back,” he said. “Always moving forward.” To help the healing. 

Now it is mere coincidence that these past 8 years of war, corruption, secrecy and lies parallel my own struggle with infertility and loss. I first learned I could be infertile just months after 9/11, one year after the Supreme Court in an unprecedented partisan act effectively appointed W to the presidency. Since then, my body has been been invaded by five surgeries in six years and countless probings, my privacy and integrity compromised by my broken insides. I grieved my only child who I was unable to sustain. I’ve struggled with my body’s refusal to cooperate with nature and our grand plan to build our family. Despite our best efforts, nothing has worked. The past nearly five years have seen every failed attempt, every crushed dream, every lost hope. Despair.  

I have waged and lost my own war. 

As I listened to this beautiful melody dedicated to our new beginning as a nation in the global community, I felt that familiar lump in my throat. It resonated deeply and I realized that today is about new hope for us too. Healing requires forward motion. “Forgiveness is letting go of all hope of a better past,” as writer Anne Lamott has said.

Today, as our nation seeks to rebuild a new vision for a new future, so too we have new hope for our own. In looking forward to (finally) bringing a child into our lives through adoption, we must also put our past behind us. We must remember to live in the moment with an eye towards our future. I have known this since we started down this new path. But how powerful to feel it, to live it.

~ by luna on November 7, 2008.