Marilyn

So, again, I've stepped away from this blog for the better part of a year.
This shit is hard, man!

Let's see. What dragged me back this time?
Oh, yes. Mysticism. I'm always intrigued by all forms of mysticism -- right now it's Earth Energies. Laugh if you must, but I truly dig it (unnecessary earthy pun). So I got interested in what my specific background was. Is.  It is so varied that I began to wonder if the info I had from the adoption agency was correct. A mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, West Indian and Black on a tiny former French colony: St Lucia. Wouldn't it make more sense if it was Aruba or Curacao? So, I went back to the only three documents I have about me.  And then my day fell apart.

The three documents that contain the entirety of my genealogical information are kept in a special file full of Very Important Documents That Must Be Guarded With One's Life.  If I ever bring a document out to reacquaint myself with its contents I return it to it's hallowed spot immediately. Why?  It took my years of waiting to procure these documents. Years of hoping some dedicated employee of xxx social service bureau would slog through the backlog of requests and process my claim. They have made it through three moves and 25 years of perusals. They are typewritten, for God's sake! Think about that for a moment.
I decided that, thanks to all the wonderful new technology, (Ancestry.ca)  I might be able to find out some new information. Or verify some of the old info I've had for years. My mother was born in 1937 and the birth records don't cover that time period. But, I knew that she was one of nine kids and if I checked the D.O.B. of the oldest I could maybe surmise the year that my grandparents were married. Assuming they were the conventional people I trusted them to be. (I don't know what sort of free love was going on in St Lucia in 1923-25! ) I got my file folder and took them out, lovingly, rereading the scant information provided in them. But, wait! There were only two. The most general and preliminary ones. Where was the somewhat-detailed-yet-still-vague-and-non-identifying one? The one that detailed each of the other eight children: their D.O.B., gender, occupation? It was gone.

I searched everywhere. I asked Rob. ( I secretly(?) blamed Rob for the better part of the day. To be fair though I could not be angry with him. If he did in fact take the paper out, it would have been years ago when he tried to surprise me by doing a ton of research to find my mother for me.)

I felt a bit hollow. A new hollowness. There is a hollowness that comes from being adopted that I think I've alluded to before. A sense of being cut off from normal people. Disconnected. Floating through life without roots. Those papers had been like aerial roots for me. Not real enough to tether me. But they were a start, a support system.
Gone.

I lay about quite listless for a little while. I didn't want to do anything. I don't know why people turn to drink at times like this. You'd just feel full and have to pee a lot. Not interested. I did consider taking up smoking again -- after 18 years. But then there's that pesky cancer I survived. That would be hard to justify.  I tried meditating. Didn't happen. I just lay around. Feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't cry though. I think because if I started I didn't know when or how I would stop. Anyway, after a few hours a thought slowly permeated the miasma. I got out my remaining papers, fiddled around on Ancestry.ca or .com or some damn site and I think, I think I may have deduced her first name. I won't go into the how and wherefores (Okay so my missing info said that she lived with her sister in Toronto until just before she had me. Long ago we had gone through census records to find two Caesar sisters living in Toronto. I cross-referenced some immigration and travel records and found a Goldie who came over in 1957 with a Harold and a Marilyn who came over in 1965. Goldie was a Mrs [so probably sister-in-law] and Marilyn was listed as a Miss. I know my mother was not married. I cross-referenced the list of Caesars we had gotten from the Toronto archivist [Rob's doing] and found the one who lived closest to the hospital at which I was born.) but I think I maybe discovered her name. Which is so much better than the details of all her siblings. This may open a few more doors. And records.