Listening requires attention and openness. Poet Ana Daksina reminds us how silence allows us to hear the beating of our own hearts…
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A lovely cousin recently gave me a copy of this photo of my grandmother, Julia Vaccaro who was an Italian-Argentine of Buenos Aires -- ringing in 1919 with family and friends! Like the United States and so many other places, Argentina is a country of immigrants. It fascinates me to see such an old photo where everyone… Continue reading Happy 2019 New Year from 1919 by da-AL→
Holidays and New Year celebrations are when messages about what family should and shouldn’t make me want to gag. They generalize everyone into one big homogenous lump.
That’s when I step back and take stock of the people I know. It does my heart good to see that we’re individuals — and that includes our families, the ones we make, or our lack thereof.
Being adopted has shaped the way I view who is family and who is not. When I found out I was adopted over thirty years ago, I saw the people around me in a different light. I saw them as strangers, yet I still accepted them as family because they had taught me to do so. I instantly realized that any combination of people could make a family.
In this way, I accepted my mother and father as my family unit. These were the people who’d decided to raise me from infancy as their own. They loved me, and I them. But when my mother died and my father gave up his parental rights, I began to question the definition. Was my adopted father not my father anymore simply because the Court said he wasn’t? I mean the Court deemed him my father in 1974, and so he was. Was…
"Flamenco & the Sitting Cat" is the title of the first of my soon-to-be self-published novels. The 'Sitting Cat' part of the title refers to the geographical shape of Iran... I grew up with only classical music -- and flamenco music and dance. My father, who left Barcelona in his mid-20s, wanted it that way.… Continue reading Flamenco Fusion→
In this way, I accepted my mother and father as my family unit. These were the people who’d decided to raise me from infancy as their own. They loved me, and I them. But when my mother died and my father gave up his parental rights, I began to question the definition. Was my adopted father not my father anymore simply because the Court said he wasn’t? I mean the Court deemed him my father in 1974, and so he was. Was…
