It all began with hair.
We were hosting dinner for our neighbors. The wife said, Oh by the way, our friends just adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. And she's willful! The girl won't let her mother comb her hair. Won't let her touch it.
My heart flipped.
I understand what it's like to be a little black girl who doesn't want anyone to touch her hair, to hurt her with an unsympathetic comb. I instinctively wanted to help that little girl. Yes, I admit it, I thought that maybe I could understand her hair trauma in ways her white mother could not.
But after our friends left, and my heart had yet to correct itself, I realized I didn't want to help that little girl. I wanted to help my own.
I wanted to adopt. It had to be a girl. And it had to be Ethiopia. Because, first and foremost, as an Ethiopian child, she would have hair like mine -- long and unruly and self-defining.
That was a year and a half ago. We began the process. We went to meetings and talked to other adoptive parents and filled out forms and repeatedly met with our social worker. We got fingerprinted and sat through workshops and submitted a slew of documents. We waited. We got a referral. We were sent her picture. She was beautiful!
And bald.
So began my process of reconciling fantasy and reality in the combustible world of adopting. So began the deeper understanding of myself, who I am in relation to what my features say about me.
Today marks the first-month anniversary of life with my new daughter.
I want to chronicle the experience -- not so much the first English words or funny comments or cute moments or milestones reached (ok, there'll be some of that). I want to explore what it means to adopt an African child as an African American; I want to connect with trans-racial adoptive parents who seek candid dialogue with someone like me -- without reservations or worries; I want to create a space where other adoptive parents of Ethiopian children can come, be part of a community.
Mostly, I want to chronicle how much I'll surely grow in the coming days and weeks and months -- right alongside my daughter's hair.
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