[PRE-REUNION]

Adoptees are constantly fielding inquiries about who their 'real' parents are: as if their adoptive parents were somehow fake and were supplanting more genuine parents elsewhere. What makes a parent real? If anything, adoptive parents feel real to adoptees who have known no other parents.

My birth parents are putative, virtual. They exist only in the realm of fantasy without the weight of facts and detailed information.

[POST-REUNION]

My birth mother is real but at first, I have a hard time calling her my parent as she was not there to raise me. I met her fully grown, as an adult. Though we have an intimate connection, we are virtually strangers. Our relationships starts off like any friendship: tentatively, as we slowly get to know each other. Though I am bound to her by blood, we are at the beginning of a relationship, delayed by a pregnant pause. At the same time, I do recognize parts of my character in her and I am truly mystified by our shared traits — thirty years later.

As my relationship with my birth family progresses, so does my relationship with my adoptive parents deepen. As I learn more of myself through this experience, so do they share in my discoveries. They can see that I feel grounded and am at peace with myself. I no longer feel like free-floating ephemera with a 'from-nowhere' existence.

DRAGKAMP

The term TUG OF WAR literally means: the contest of pulling with great force and persistent effort. It originates from the archaic words 'togga wera' out of old Scandinavian, German and Frisian languages. The original meaning of the name is best expressed in the Swedish name 'dragkamp'.

Dragkamp can be a Tug of War of warring loyalties and affection for the adoptee. "Who do I belong to" or "Can I belong to myself?” As an adult, I do not need to choose between two sets of parents — choosing one mother as real and denouncing the other as fake. I can choose to have both of them as part of my life.

If there is DRAGKAMP in our relationships, it is simply the prosaic details of dividing time between loved ones. It is not so different from the visiting arrangements of a child of divorced parents or the married couple's staggered visits to in-laws.

The black and white, either/or template of the CHALK CIRCLE is not so much a story of one parent (either the adoptive or birth parent, mother or father) having exclusive rights of ownership over a child as much as it is about the shifting divide between the wishes of the parent and what is best for the child. It is a pulling back and forth of the weight of love and possessiveness. The word DRAGKAMP does not hold weight for me as much as the word BALANCE: I find myself negotiating, wanting to be fair with my affections, time and loyalties.