Evolution

First Peanut Butter

Bear with me a bit.  I’m going to digress, but I’ll bring it back around to this cute little picture on the right.
 
You would think that humans would possess every possible evolutionary advantage over viruses.  We are complex organisms comprised of trillions of cells that specialize in myriad different functions.  We have ridiculously sophisticated systems dedicated to the defense against, and destruction of, foreign entities that find their way into us.  As if that’s not enough, our higher brain function allows us to go further, inventing artificial preventative and palliative measures that significantly augment our natural defenses.


Yet a virus, which in many ways isn’t even technically alive, can still tear us apart with ease.  It’s the old “Fox and Hedgehog” metaphor.  We humans are the foxes – cunning, complicated, innovative, versatile.  The virus is the hedgehog – it’s found one thing that it does extremely well, and sticks to that one thing with ruthless, mindless, endless efficiency.  That one thing?  Invading our bodies and using them to reproduce itself.  Any symptoms we develop are purely incidental to that process, except insofar as they help the virus to replicate itself or transmit itself to new hosts.

So if you’re wondering why I haven’t posted for the last couple of days, it’s simply because a virus was busy using my body to do what it does best, despite all the medicines I could throw at it.  Still is, actually.  I could barely sit up yesterday, and couldn’t muster the energy to write something down.  I couldn’t stand to look at Eli when he was enjoying this peanut butter – I couldn’t even stand to hear the words “peanut butter” mentioned in my presence.  I was completely wiped out, incapacitated, pathetic.  Today I’m back about forty percent, though it ebbs and flows. 

This is not how I envisioned spending my time here.  I know it’s not how Allison envisioned spending her time here.  She’s exhausted too, from wrangling all three kids the last three days and carrying Eli everywhere and still finding opportunities to buy me ginger ale and water.
Luckily, things have a way of going well without me. 

Play Room

Eli continues to be a champion.  The sliver lining to my illness is that Eli has really had a chance to develop a strong bond with Allison.  He delights in her presence, lights up when she comes in the room, wonders where she is when she’s gone.   He has an incredibly cute laugh and shares it liberally when she’s around (and when he’s well fed).  He’s also bonded tightly with Naomi and Townes, who’ve joined him frequently in the hotel’s play room.

And me – well, I still get to share nap time with him, since that’s about all I’m good for.  I’ll take it. 

So he’s doing well with us.  He definitely gets more nervous when he goes outside.  All the sights and smells and sounds overwhelm him.  He wants to be carried everywhere, which wreaks havoc on Allison’s joints.  We’re not worried about this, since if he forms attachments with us he’ll manage to find his way in the rest of the world eventually.

All of this, and my copious down time the last few days, has me thinking about the vast range of different experiences people have when they come here to Guangzhou to find their children.  Some of these differences relate to external factors like illness, travel difficulties, bureaucratic snags, weather.  Most of them derive from the children themselves.  They come in all ages, all stages of physical, mental and emotional development.  One three-year-old girl here, for example, is full of energy and built like an NFL fullback, proving that not all waiting orphans are spindly (maybe not even most).  Another 18-month-old, by contrast, is emotionally listless and lacking in muscle tone, clearly having received too little attention and spent too much time crib-bound in the orphanage.    Other kids are older, being adopted into families with 4 or 5 Chinese children already – all of whom are here to welcome their new siblings.  Some are infants being adopted by couples becoming parents for the first time.  A few have cleft palates, or slight deformities, or albinism, or any number of other “special needs” that may not be apparent to the eye. 

Avatar Townes

I’m glad we’re not hedgehogs.  We need to be versatile, sophisticated, to face the array of challenges that can come our way on this kind of adventure.  I’m amazed as I watch the hundreds of parents here, each dealing with their unique challenges and circumstances creatively and patiently and almost without exception, happily.

I could do without the virus all the same.  

I should add that the family has somehow managed to enjoy itself in spite of my absence from most of their activities.  Today they went to visit the Tomb of the Nanyue King.  Here’s a final shot of Townes in front of one of the pieces of funerary art there, in a pose of deep mystery and intrigue.