Driven by Guilt

I’ve been planing on going to India this winter for at least a few months now. It has been a stressful process and I’ve done a pretty good job of procrastinating about the important things like determining what I’m going to be doing while there. The idea really solidified itself after a few weeks of […]

Daughter of the Ganges

There are others who have gone ahead of me, scouting, getting lost, running into demons and in some cases fighting them off and in others retreating in search of paths easier to travel. We take different perspectives to life. Our stories are like two rivers dancing, intertwined one moment and heading in opposite directions in […]

4 years

Its been 4 year since I started writing and within the last two months I have done more to help myself process than in the previous 27 years. I started out writing, reading and trying to expose myself to others’ stories. When I began I just needed to know I wasn’t along asn an adoptee. […]

“Calcutta is my Mother”

I sometimes stumble across stories of other Indian Transracial Adoptees who have gotten some press, usually because they are in some stage of searching. This most recent story is being made into the movie “Calcutta is my Mother” which from the short trailer: https://vimeo.com/168535931 seems less about the act of searching for birth/first family than an […]

Dear Anna Belle Illien

This is a letter to Anna Belle Illien who was one of the people, or at least her agency, Illien Adoption International Inc., responsible for my adoption about a quarter of a century ago. I have never reached out to Illien the person or the agency but it is one of the connections that I […]

Do You Remember Me?

One of the adoption agencies that worked with my parents to help them identify a child was called Illien Adoption International. I’ll admit I have not done a lot of research about the organization and thus have not really formulated an opinion about whether or not I feel they are helping or hurting the cause, […]

Adoption Therapy: Here I Come!

I have decided that in my searching process I would like to have some support as I move along, thus I have begun looking for a suitable therapist/social worker/mental health professional to help me along the way. I had at one point wanted to wait until I had a significant other who I felt would […]

Step 1

I like to plan things, create routines, prioritize and then move forward. Given this proclivity I like to layout a plan for how things will go and determine the best and most efficient way to get from point Here to point Over There Somewhere. In this mindset it is always good to determine both the starting […]

The Search

I’m going to begin searching for more information related to my personal and familial history in India. Specifically, hoping to find information, traces, clues and people in India who either knew people I am biologically related to or that I share biology with. I just had to say this, you know, out loud to make […]