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rocking on the waves
Apr. 10th, 2007 09:36 amSeers know; plumbing the past is as murky as divining the future. And so it goes with my own ambivalent quest. No agency has a record of me; I might as well not exist. Some things can't be lost, of course; there is still the court record, but apparently it is even sparser than court records normally are.
They do have a maiden name; it's a small something. I already know what my last name was, so even the incremental knowledge is small. Still, if I want, I can have them pursue it. They have access to things I do not. There is a small possibility of success.
The intermediary suggested that it is best to write a letter; many people will accept a letter with a photograph when they won't consent to a phone call or releasing contact information.
How does one write such a letter? I'm minded of passage in Anne of Windy Poplars, in which she describes the complications of writing a certain sort of letter. The nib must not be too scratchy, nor the ink too thin; the paper can not bleed nor the pen throw blots. Any of these things will result in a completely different sort of letter being written.
I scan my shelves for the fragile green binding of the book, and can't find it. I left a note in its spine, I remember, but can't recall why. Now both are missing.
And so I must confront the internal- my expectations and projections, and construct some sort of missive to the vast unknown. What am I seeking? Why do I seek? What is the greatest question?
I still want to know, I think, what is nature and what is nurture. Am I in truth a changeling, akin to no one? Or is my ambivalence and equivocation genetic? Perhaps it is attributable to my nameless father, and my mere existence will sear like a lash to the memory of my erstwhile host.
Perhaps reading Middlesex over the course of several long feverish nights was a miscalculation; I see the strands of my history floating into the fog, telegraph lines to the past, and I want to know the signature of the hand on the far side.
They do have a maiden name; it's a small something. I already know what my last name was, so even the incremental knowledge is small. Still, if I want, I can have them pursue it. They have access to things I do not. There is a small possibility of success.
The intermediary suggested that it is best to write a letter; many people will accept a letter with a photograph when they won't consent to a phone call or releasing contact information.
How does one write such a letter? I'm minded of passage in Anne of Windy Poplars, in which she describes the complications of writing a certain sort of letter. The nib must not be too scratchy, nor the ink too thin; the paper can not bleed nor the pen throw blots. Any of these things will result in a completely different sort of letter being written.
I scan my shelves for the fragile green binding of the book, and can't find it. I left a note in its spine, I remember, but can't recall why. Now both are missing.
And so I must confront the internal- my expectations and projections, and construct some sort of missive to the vast unknown. What am I seeking? Why do I seek? What is the greatest question?
I still want to know, I think, what is nature and what is nurture. Am I in truth a changeling, akin to no one? Or is my ambivalence and equivocation genetic? Perhaps it is attributable to my nameless father, and my mere existence will sear like a lash to the memory of my erstwhile host.
Perhaps reading Middlesex over the course of several long feverish nights was a miscalculation; I see the strands of my history floating into the fog, telegraph lines to the past, and I want to know the signature of the hand on the far side.
