272 James Cagney
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/272
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Welcome back. We are in our first episode of 2024. Happy New Year. Today's guest is award winning poet, James Cagney, author of Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, and Martian, the Saint of Loneliness.
James is known for his absolutely dynamic live poetry readings, and we are honored with a reading in this very episode. We discuss how James came to find out he was adopted. And as usual, I've got questions about why parents keep these things a secret. Before we get started, [00:01:00] I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website adopteeson. com. Let's listen in.
I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, James Cagney. Welcome, James.
James Cagney: Thank you, Haley. It's so awesome and great to be here with you. I'm honored that you invited me to come do this show.
Haley Radke: I am so excited to talk with you. I'd love it if you would start by sharing some of your story with us.
James Cagney: I was born in in 1968 as an only child.
And had, I guess I have to come out and be honest and say I had a really positive and pleasant childhood. I was an only kid. And I guess if anything, my issue was I was mighty lonely. I did bond very [00:02:00] strongly with this youngster when I was very in elementary school. And it was one of those situations where his family ended up having to move out of town.
And I guess I bonded with him. So when he left, my mom got a different kind of kid. So my mom biologically could not have any kids. My mother and father, when I was born in 68, my dad was working as a longshoreman, a mechanic for the Naval shipyards in San Francisco. My mom was working as a supervisor and instructor at beauty schools here in the East Bay.
And when I was born, they were both in their in their mid forties. So what I was going to say is that my mom's sister. As I mentioned, my mom biologically couldn't have any kids. Her only other younger sister had 12. [00:03:00] So my, after my friends just sort of, went out of my life, my aunt would come, would occasionally send cousins down for me to play with or whatnot.
Because loneliness, I guess, was my only issue. There was this moment that I distinctly remember where my mom turned to me and she said, cause I guess I was whining about, playing by myself or something. It's not like I'm an outgoing man now, and it's not like I was an outgoing kid then, but she turned to me and she said to me, do you want me to take you to where other kids are?
And the way she placed it, the way she said that particular sentence at that particular time when I'm standing with her in the kitchen made me massively uncomfortable because it almost sounded like she knew of a place where she could drop me off if I wanted to. And I was horrified by what I didn't understand in that sentence.
And I was like no, I'm good. I'm good. [00:04:00] I have no issues. I'll go back and do what I was doing or whatever. It was like that. I had a fair, good childhood in high school about when I was like in the 11th or 10th grade or so. My father came to to pick me up as he often did. And at that time I was friends with this kid at school named Michael.
And. My dad gave Michael a ride back to our neighborhood because at the time, Michael supposedly lived near us. And Michael's one of those, I'm saying kid, he was a 10th, 11th grader, but I would like you to understand that Michael was also one of those young people that kind, that instead of wearing, taking a backpack with him. He was one of those kids that would use a briefcase or a satchel. One of those, okay? I can't define that any better. aS he and I are sitting in the backseat just kind of like chatting and whatnot, he just boldly and blindly just turns to me [00:05:00] and asks me if I was adopted, which just blew my mind away a moment.
Which just didn't even make any sense to me because I was like, why on earth would you even say a thing like that? You know I'm not adopted. Of course not. And I'm chatting with him about this while my dad is sitting right there driving the car. And I'm looking at the back of his head and that eternal cowboy hat that he's wearing.
And then Michael explains, he says, Well, it's basically because you and your dad are just so very different and I don't know what my response to that was I possibly may have just shrugged that off and just you know let that be whatever it was just like an oddity or so's that but he just asked the question and let it go dropped off and we went home and yes hey, I'm about to say a few years later at that time, I've graduated high school, and now I'm just getting in, I guess, to Laney College and just then starting [00:06:00] to figure out who it is I wanted to be or where I wanted to go.
I'm 19 at this particular point now, and one, it's a Sunday afternoon at this point, and I'm in my room as I am at just hanging out with with me, and, what I'm hearing in the house, actually, is these women have come to visit. And this didn't strike me at all unusual. In fact, I just shut the my bedroom door so that they can have their conversation, because I was barely interested in that.
Because what it was, is that for the bulk of my life, my mom's students at the beauty school where she worked after she retired, they would often come visit and hang out with her and check in on her because she, I will say was an honored teacher at that school and by her students. And it was on a regular basis that people would come by and hang out and chat and visit.
And I'm like, I have no, no game in that.[00:07:00] So I'm just going to sit in here and watch television. And then my father did something. I'm 19. He did something he had never in my life had ever done, which is he knocked on my bedroom door and came in. And he said to me why don't you come out and visit with the people.
And that strikes me. Very strange, but I'm like, okay, I feel like I'm halfway scared because he just did something that was extraordinarily unusual for him. Him being a very stoic, very Texas kind of man. And I go into the living room and the living room and the dining room with these open two rooms adjacent to one another.
And what I'm seeing is my mom sitting at the edge of the dining room table talking to a woman sitting in our rocker, that gigantic, lounger that everybody adds. And I'm seeing another woman on the [00:08:00] couch. with two children on each side of her, a little boy and a little girl. And I grab a chair from the dining room table and sit in on this conversation where they're chatting.
Turns out, this woman in the rocker who's come to visit is one of my mom's former students. And so I just sit here, hey, hello, how are you? And they just continue this sort of conversation about, family and life and whatnot. Two things happen. Let me say this one first at one point, the woman who was visiting had taken out her photos because this is, those photos would not be on the phone.
It's funny how my mind is trying to rewrite that moment, but women used to carry these little purses that also had photos in them and she took this out and she showed me some photographs of her son, her other sons of which she. Yeah, of course. I didn't even ask what that, why you were even [00:09:00] bothering sharing this with me.
Maybe just proving that there's other boys around in the world. She shows me a photo of a man in a military outfit. She shows me a photo of another man participating in a marathon. And she doesn't really explain anything about them. She just showed them to me and wanted me to look in that. And I'm obediently paying attention to the conversation and listening and whatnot, and hanging out and listening to these two older ladies talk. And I'm just waiting for my release to be able to go back to my room and listen to music or whatever. Then my mom says to me why don't you take the kids that the second woman was sitting with why don't you take them and give them some cookies?
And look I've mentioned not being an only child. I don't know how kids work. I was a I just had no I wasn't that gregarious with kids, but I'm like, all right, come on you guys let's go and I take this container down and open it and offer these [00:10:00] two some cookies the boy is my blood nephew, Joshua.
The girl is my blood nephew niece, sorry, Brandy. Allow them to take what they wanted and place the thing back on and we go back in the living room. These two kids sit with the woman who came with them, who is my sister next in age next in age above me. A couple of years older than me, if one or two or so.
And during that time, during that process, she said all of nothing. As a PS, her mother asked her not to say anything because she was just going to explode in conversation and chat. So it was almost like she was doing this purposeful Buddhist meditation of silence while she was there with us. The part of me that almost rang that I thought I knew her before was true.
Not only [00:11:00] because she looked very much like me. But when I would think about it later, I realize these two women have been to this house before, that they visited, and as a kid, I remember playing with her once in the backyard. But that was a hell of a long time ago and, and it's whatever.
Yeah, all of us, my dad sitting there quietly, I'm sitting there quietly, my mom's doing the chatting, the woman in the chair whose name is Rosie. She's doing the chatting. The woman on the couch is not chatting. The kids are not chatting. They're all just talking and we're just witnesses. The afternoon, sort of, comes to its natural conclusion.
I guess we better go. Goodbye. Maybe I they decided to hug everybody as they were leaving. I kind of don't remember that I just remember going out on the front steps as they went and got in their car parked directly in front of our house and just got [00:12:00] in it and waved and we all sat on the front steps of the house and watched as they pulled away and then my father turned to me and he said, do you think you look like either of them?
And my immediate answer here is, of course no, why would I think that I look like, a couple of strangers? I certainly did not at that time see or perhaps even wanted to see any resemblance. Beg your pardon to, a strange woman that I just was introduced to a few seconds ago or whatever's like that.
And that, Haley, is the only thing either my mom or dad said to me from that Sunday afternoon. And I'm going to give you another chapter to that. I'm going to say that Sunday afternoon went on because I remembered us making a trip to go get some [00:13:00] furniture or something or look at a case or something.
And I remember going to school the next day of taking classes at Laney and just feeling massively distracted because that question kept rolling back through my head. Why on earth would he say that to me? Why would he even ask that of me? And my dad was out when I got back and it's just my mom and me and I'm sitting on the floor next to her and we're both watching, Wheel of Fortune.
And I am just sort of not really being present with that. I'm just sort of trying to put together what just happened. And I just spontaneously then turn to my mom. In this space, if you're looking at it in your head, I could pretty much put my hand on her knee, on her on her leg from where I'm sitting on the floor.
And I just turn up and look to her and I say, Are you really my mother? And what she does [00:14:00] is she just takes this huge inhale of breath and she tells me this story.
She explained to me that the woman that came, that was sitting in that rocker was one of her students many years ago. She had, at that point six kids. And she was in that college, in that beauty school, trying to learn a trade, to make some money or whatever's like that. And she was going through a lot of hard times.
My mom, because she, had gotten into her mid late forties or so, was okay, the word would be den mother to all of her students. It's like all of them could come to her and she was a supportive heart. She was a hard, good teacher, but she was also just very generous.
She taught me the open hand [00:15:00] policy in that she once illustrated to me and said to me, if I put my hand out like this in a fist. You can't put anything in it, and you can't take anything out of it, can you? And then she said if you can put as much as you want in it when my hand is open, and you can't really take anything more from me than I'm willing to give when my hand is open. And I'm like, that made like a lot of sense to me, and it turned out to be that was an actual deep Buddhist philosophy, that there was no way that she could have learned on her own anyway. That was just how she lived. And she ended up giving and sharing a lot with this particular woman, and she said, that the woman had gotten pregnant with me and was going through this weird relationship and breakup with my biological father. And there was just like an issue with having enough money to take care of all of these kids. So she ended up distributing and sharing some of her kids to her sisters. Cause she had four or five brothers and sisters of her [00:16:00] own, so she would send a couple to Louisiana from the state where where she was from, and so on and so forth.
The dude in the military outfit that she shared with me, she sent him to military school. It was just there was just a lot of drama and stress, and she felt I guess, if I can talk for her, she could not be present. for, raising a brand new kid. What her plan was and what she asked my mom was to take care of me for a few years until she got her life together and then she would come back and claim. And my mom agreed to that. And what do you call it? When then I was born, what my mom told me is that she and my dad was both getting ready to go to work. They were dressing and whatever it was like that. And the phone rang. The phone was a nurse at Highland Hospital who basically said to her my mom had told me that she said to her something To the effect, [00:17:00] Ms. Cagney, your baby is here and ready. And my mom was almost like what are you talking about? Seeing my dad go down to the hospital to go see me and basically, in a way, and then, and a truncated story basically can sign me out of the hospital. And I stayed with them for the rest of my life. The addendum to that is that she told me that when I was still in arms, that she visited the house again and asked to borrow me to take me to the, for the day to at least show the rest of her family me and who I was.
Haley Radke: Your birth mother.
James Cagney: Correct. Because, it is possible, and after meeting her, it is totally possible that she thought that a shared child was reasonable, but she thought that would actually be a plan and could work. And she just wanted to introduce me to the other side of my life. And the way my mother explained it [00:18:00] is that when Rosie, my biological mom, then took me and left the house, from that moment, I started crying and did not stop for the entire trip until Rosie brought me back to that house and put me back in, in my mom, whose name was was Juanita. Placed me back in her arms and then I stopped. And if I'm not mistaken, I think that was one of the last times that she just kind of physically came to visit me. But to answer a phantom question I do believe that the two of them remained in continuous contact throughout my life off and on and just made a decision to sort of leave me out of their conversation and or, periodic check in relationship.
Haley Radke: Did you ever ask them why they didn't tell [00:19:00] you? All of them.
James Cagney: I did not have. Which I'm going to describe here as this wonderfully brave soap opera moments of turning to anybody and saying, why didn't you say something beforehand? And I sitting here thinking about that, strangely, I don't think that ever would have occurred to me. I don't know. And, and it's I've listened to a couple of your podcasts and I've heard a couple of stories from other adoptees or whatnot.
And there is this consistent sort of thing about, at least being confronted by the idea of adoption and then feeling a need to close this sudden mystery as to who is this mysterious person then that left me with you? Or, what was the circumstances of why did this happen? The why of [00:20:00] it, honest on everything I can tell you, just never, ever occurred to me because there was never, even after they left the house when I'm an adult, there was never a point when I felt unhappy or dissatisfied where I was like, I feel like there's some other story going on here. There was never a moment where I felt separated. There was never a moment when I felt uncomfortable. There was never a moment when I felt that something was wrong with the relationship that I had with my parents.
I was fat and happy as far as I was concerned. And there was never a trigger for me to want to chase that car and answer any questions. I had no questions. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Do you know, that's, I'm sorry to say this to you, that is so strange to me just in the fact that they knew this huge secret about you.[00:21:00]
They had her over and sat her with you in the living room. And if you hadn't asked your mother, were they ever going to tell you?
James Cagney: And you know something? Later. Later. I'm actually, I may not watch the screen depending on your response to this, but later sometime later, how long later was this? I don't know what weeks, months maybe a year or something.
At some point, my father sort of explained to me that they must have reckoned. Let me say it like this. They wanted to prevent me from meeting and falling in love with a relative I did not know. That I guess that was the trigger that possibly made this happen. No one, my father, for example, never ever circled back to that moment with me and Michael and him in the car and said anything to me ever [00:22:00] about that, positive or negative.
My read of it now as a middle aged man and then looking back at the details and the patterns of how all that works. I'm pretty sure that he and my mom talked about that and then they had to figure out how exactly and when exactly to introduce this concept to to me. And that apparently, from my understanding, that was how they did it.
They decided to just have this big meetup and see what would happen.
Haley Radke: So it was like bread crumbing you? So you would ask instead of them outright telling you that was the plan.
James Cagney: Correct. Because, they've been, that does take all the pressure off of them, because I guess, and you may have a better insight on this than I would, I guess there is then this certain pressure for the parents of adopted kids, because then you have one of two kind of adopted kids.
[00:23:00] You have a kid that you purposefully went out and adopted as an older kid. And you have a kid that you may have purposefully went out and adopted as a baby. And your decision becomes, do we raise this infant with full knowledge that we are taking care of this infant for someone who is missing and not present?
Do we wait for this kid to ask us about certain things and then we just tell them the truth. I don't even know what the sort of familial family ethics about that would be. I don't even know what a lot, what has happened in a lot of other families where a person has been adopted as an infant and then needed to have it revealed to them that they were adopted.
I don't know what that percentage worked out. I don't even know what kind of stories those are.
Haley Radke: There, we definitely have more late discovery adoptees than we should, in my opinion. I'm curious [00:24:00] because I've talked to a couple of other late discovery adoptees who are also black, same race adoptions, and there's, there was a couple of thoughts that they've presented to me over a couple of conversations.
So one is there was still stigma and shame surrounding adoption for infertile black couples. And then, what you were sort of describing with your biological mother having, oh, it's kind of a difficult time, so my sister's going to raise these kids. Sort of the communal family is sort of like a normal thing, kind of passing around kids to, what do you call that? Just, it's a, like kinship situations, right? Which sounds more like kind of what your situation was, but you were legally adopted, right?
James Cagney: Correct. Thank you. Cause that conversation triggered a memory that I [00:25:00] think there was this long time when the two mothers didn't talk. And that was when I guess they somehow Went to an attorney at some point. My, my adoptive parents went to an attorney or something like that. And they explained to me that they somehow worked it out for me to be, a legal child of theirs on paper, on documents. So they, so I could get access or to, to their records or whatever. That's so that I'm acknowledged as a child and part of their family.
And I do believe that caused a little bit of a rift then between the two moms for a while, just really because they decided to claim me. I guess in that process, or maybe even from the first day, that was how I got my name, because my father was legally a Cagney. His name was James. And when I was given to them, that got placed on me as well.[00:26:00]
Haley Radke: Can I fast forward you a little bit? I know that you had a period of time where you lived with your biological mother a few years down the road. What was that like getting to know her? What was that experience like?
James Cagney: I listened briefly to this wonderful story that you recorded with another guest earlier this year, where this man explained that he went down this elevator and, to meet his particular mother.
And when the elevator door opened, there was this moment of them just falling in and just recognizing and sort of loving one another, instantly in a way that he had sent her, photos of him and his family and stuff so she knew what to look for, but yet when they saw one another that first time, there was this wonderful click that happened in these and [00:27:00] something made sense for him and perhaps her.
I never felt comfortable with that particular story because it felt. And I learned this as I was going through the process, but it felt very much like I was cheating on my family. Like I was cheating on my mother with another mother. There is no better way to really explain that metaphor to you. And and to fast forward through some stuff, so when my, the mother that raised me then finally died, and then I went and spent full time with my biological mother, and, and she kind of then went back and explained certain things to me and so on and so forth.
There was never actually a particular trigger. Where I was like, I am happy about this. There was never a moment when I was like, when I felt like I [00:28:00] am really honored to meet you and to figure any of this out. There was not a moment of a particular thrilling joy for me. What there was admittedly was this level of performance, this level of, I don't really have a choice here for where I want to go or want to do, especially after, after my family finally, died out, there was a sense like I have to figure out and develop a part of my personality that is okay with this because admittedly, I don't really think that I was and I don't believe not that I feel like they could have or that I blame them for that or, or whatever.
I don't really think anybody in the family when I finally met everybody together, I don't really feel like anybody really saw me in the sense that,[00:29:00] okay, I'm an artist. I'm about to say something weird. That I realized over time that the eyes are both a camera, and they're also a projector because I realized that you also that you not only just take in information from what you're seeing and experiencing, but there's a time where you're laying over information based on what it is that you're seeing and what you assume about it.
And I feel when I got into my biological mother's house, I felt myself kind of wrapped in this sort of weird plastic where people are looking at this creation that they have thought about for the bulk of their lives and have been told about. But, I never truly genuinely felt like anybody was curious and interested in me.
I don't know if that's a, that almost feels like a selfish narcissistic thing to say. And maybe it's kind of foolish to be dropped into this room full of people and expect them to ask me [00:30:00] anything about what's been going on with my life before, before meeting them and what that was like. But it always felt a little bit to me like I had to perform through this like everything is okay.
Like I'm not sort of confused. Like I'm not sort of in this weird panic, like I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with myself that I don't exactly know then what identity I'm supposed to have here to you. It was like this weird little thing I had to figure out for myself. And that became especially, I guess, looser or more easier for me.
After my mom died because I realized their death then just finalized and closed this major chapter on my life and technically in theory their death freed me to just fully embrace being now instead of a only child, the youngest kid for under seven[00:31:00] with these seven brothers and sisters. And then all of this, you know, huge collection of nieces and nephews.
And that is a huge difference for me to kind of figure out how to navigate and to be in. Because, I will say to you, I mentioned that my mom's aunt had 12 kids where my mom could not. When my mom died, my aunt invited and asked me to go with her to Los Angeles and live. And she just blatantly just stood there and stood in my face and invited me to come with her.
And it was almost like, because the rest of her family were out in the car and they were about to drive off and she was saying her final goodbyes to me, and she said that. And it was almost like, if you just want to shut the door and come with me right now, you can do that. And because of how I had been raised as an only kid, I guess I was so used to the isolation. I just didn't know how to be in that circle of 12 people. And consequently [00:32:00] I had to figure it out with being dropped as a adult into this circle of six. And then, yeah, to wrap back around respectfully. Yeah. There was never a moment when I had this great connection or had these great stories or had this great sense of sharing with my biological mother.
It was always a sense of me performing as a sort of. Just listening a lot allowing her to tell the story, observing a lot I don't want to seem like I was completely, a closed shell of a person, I'm not speaking, because I was speaking and talking, but it was just like there wasn't a lot that I could present, because I was at a level sort of confused as to what I'm supposed to do and what I'm supposed to be, both, to them as a family, And then to myself, who feels bifurcated [00:33:00] when I even hear now the word mother.
It's to drop that word for me, my brain goes into two different places. And I feel if you ask me about my mother, I suddenly have to feel like I need to explain something to you. And there was no real sense of gaining love being introduced into that other family. More than there was a sense of losing my identity and losing love when my the family that raised me finally admitted this story and then became sick and died away.
It's just sort of a pretending to be okay with all of this. Because I guess technically and deeply, I was not. Not that I was angry and not that I was, hateful or frustrated or anything like that. I just suddenly didn't know what my own ID was supposed to be.
Haley Radke: I think there's this thing in reunion too, where [00:34:00] there's a fear of revealing our true selves. First of all, yes, we got to figure out our identity. Adoptees have trouble with that. Most of, I would say, most of the people I talk to do anyway. But there's a fear of revealing our true identity because are they going to reject us again? And it's, that's really scary to look at.
James Cagney: Yeah, because I don't think, I didn't think of the math of I guess I did, and I'm denying you that I did think about it, because I guess, I must have spent some time writing in my journal about it, but it was that I didn't really think about the concept of feeling rejected. I don't believe I shared with you that I was the only one or made clear that I was the only one of her kids that she gave to someone outside of her immediate family.
But it never was like a worry to me and it was never a thing to [00:35:00] me where I felt like, I hated or had issues against her for doing that. To be completely honest, now standing here after she has been passed a few years ago. And then looking at the entire landscape of all of that with the grace and the apology and the support of God and whatever entities want to support me in that moment, I just didn't get to value a good relationship with my biological mother that really made me wish that my childhood was different, that I felt kind of mildly relieved after I really got to know her. I felt mildly relieved that I was not raised under her. There are assumptions on my part as to what would have happened to me if she had kept me and if I would have stayed there. And there's a lot of things that I assume never ever would have happened. I don't presume there would ever be poetry. I don't [00:36:00] presume I would be like a published author at all.
I don't even see how I would have had the time or the inclination to do any of that or maintain it. And again, as I mentioned, my parents were good to me. You know what? If I would think I was spanked like three times and I had it coming and, as a baby.
Haley Radke: Okay.
James Cagney: Honest to goodness. I was, I was raised really well. If I went to bed hungry, that was my fault because I was being a rat for whatever was cooked on that particular day. But you know what? I had a good life. I was happy with my parents. And I guess maybe that's what it was, is that my story got engaged with a touch of resentment because I'm living here in this life and someone touches me on the shoulder to basically tell me that the life I have been living is not exactly mine.
That it's this kind of creation that in a strange way doesn't exist yet. That's the role I've been playing since I've been born.
Haley Radke: [00:37:00] I kept thinking when you were talking about your like living with your mother and what was that like that the words blood strangers, which is the title of one of your poems but I mean I'm unhooking it from the title and I'm just thinking about that phrase and I've heard you talk in other interviews about your relationship with your siblings and those kinds of things And what you wished for or what could be different in those. And I thought, Oh yeah, blood strangers. I bet a lot of people will resonate with that phrase for struggles and reunion.
James Cagney: It's funny, because that was almost the title of my that first poetry collection. And I was in a circle of writers, and one of them was a transracial adoptee. And she had mentioned to me that there was this book written by a doctor, a psychologist, or something like that was out there, that was called Blood Strangers.
And you know what? And there was no [00:38:00] on that end, it was sort of like it, it pushed me to try to be a little bit more creative with what that title was, but that's absolutely how I felt for a very long time. I kind of recognize my face in some of these some of these folks. Yet at the same time I don't fully, truly recognize myself in this picture or what I'm supposed to do or be.
I just kind of I remember at the time just sort of feeling like I didn't really know how to do it. I just rode with the, I just rode with the wave. I also want to be clear that when I did finally go live with my biological mom and her family, everybody was very kind and very sweet to me.
I do want to wink at you and say that I feel like I ended up having a better, more comfortable relationship with my mother's sister than I actually did with my mom because I felt like she was when I told you that story [00:39:00] that she felt like she could give birth to me and then maybe in a couple of years come back and pick me up, that basically is her personality.
You know that she is just disaffected and just I just sort of watched her just do a lot of really interesting things. and that was what really sort of soothed me and made me think, maybe I got a much, much better deal than to staying here.
Nobody was ever awful to me. Everybody was very sweet, including herself. It was just It was just kind of, after I was placed back in her family, back in her, collection and after the honeymoon period wore off, it just sort of, then everything returned for them to normal and then I had to figure out how to be in this new normal.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I hope that was an answer. You should ask me if I, for clarity.
Haley Radke: I think we have clarity. I think I appreciate you saying the real feelings of your experiences, right? Because I [00:40:00] know you're not alone in having that situation. I know there's other adoptees that have experienced that.
I was wondering if you would read something for us. Which poem do you think will be the most linked to what we've talked about?
James Cagney: I want to talk about one poem and then I'm going to read another poem.
Haley Radke: Okay. Yep.
James Cagney: I'm going to ask your listeners to go pick up my book to find out what it is I'm talking about when I mentioned the Empty of Apologies.
And then I'm going to read, I Am Adopted. Cause I haven't read that in public in a really long time. What I remembered is one weekend when I went up to go visit, I at the time I think I was living in San Francisco, I had moved out of staying with my biological mom who lived in Sacramento, and I was back in my apartment after, hanging out for the weekend or holiday perhaps [00:41:00] with them and I was back and I was standing in the mirror shaving. Looking at my reflection, and I was thinking of watching her bake bread and explain to me what her life was like during the time when she gave me up that when she put me up for adoption. And she actually apologized and said that she was sorry for everything that it was that she, put me through in the context of telling me this story.
And I listened to and accepted all of that and dismissed it. I didn't really feel at that moment when she was even saying that I was even edging out for a for an apology of any kind. But when I was standing there looking at myself in the mirror I almost became a touch offended because I really, truly did not want an apology.
I guess as I mentioned to you earlier, I feel extraordinarily blessed with how my life turned out to be and how it [00:42:00] was. And there was a tiny bit of me that was almost grateful that it happened in that way. And I kind of realized, I just didn't want her or didn't need, thank you, maybe that's the thing, I didn't need her to apologize and cover for my childhood and cover for that choice that she made.
That, I guess it was alright to me, and we didn't really need to go back over that. And for her to be clear. I appreciate it, I accepted it, and thanked her, but when I'm standing here just sort of reviewing, that story she was telling me and looking at myself, I was like, I just don't want this apology.
And for the bulk of my life, I've been told by random friends and heard in random stories, don't say sorry. It's oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. I hate the word sorry. Don't you say anything, but don't say the word sorry. And then I just decided to turn towards that word and really look at it. And that tension was what the poem [00:43:00] Empty of Apologies was all about.
But what I really wanted to do for your show is this poem called I Am Adopted. Every so often, my dad would tell this joke, uh, that he and his, and my mom would, went fishing one day and they saw a baby on a log floating down the river. And my dad cast a fishing line out and grabbed the log and reeled it in. And his, and the end of his story was, and then we had a baby. He found this very funny. My mom found this slightly embarrassing. I kind of found it funny not really realizing that the joke was about me and that, that was kind of how my story got dropped into me.
That was the rawest seed of truth that they ever told me as a kid, as an infant. That they gave me a key, but they [00:44:00] had never ever indicated to what lock that was supposed to really open. I think this is the first clear time, I just turn towards the mic. Said it,
I am adopted. I am carrier of all stories and owner of none. At my birth there were no storks, just an armada of perch and sunfish, guiding me naked, unmoored, down river on driftwood. The name of that river, flush with butterfat free range babies, astride floating trunks like a colony of frogs, was never said, just this. The tale of how I came to be in your family without love's drunken regret or teenage impropriety, but rather a fishing trip where the big one was me, as huge a surprise as a tsunami.
Imagine Plato, a glitter in Vegas, or touring the Chitlin circuit as a stand up. [00:45:00] This was how my truth was revealed, couched in a drunken comics aside. I am the conjured one, and my life story is his big closer. Think it's easy making this [censored] up? Try inventing a real life. You are reflection of every previous face and posture.
You are reflection of every memory recalled, every shot of generational juice exchanged. I am the dust on your mirror. I am the crumpled receipt in your purse. I am adopted, from the Latin word meaning, to pencil in, to opt for. I am carrier of the virus of story. Along the fault lines cracking my heart are inherited memories like viral jingles for products they no longer make.
You are my cousin, my brother, my niece. Yet I apologize that every time I see you, I [00:46:00] must renew my vows. I hold the stories your ancestors are too busy with death to explain. If you can put your phone away long enough, I can recite their ungooglable stories. Stories you'll soon learn the hard way. I knew your grandparents and I ushered their funerals.
I collected empty bourbon bottles during their bid whist games. I can remember them planting the fruit trees crowning your yard. I can remember your aunt Effie saying, you can hollow out the people, but they still carry the seed. Blood knows the memory and ancient songs will play through the pinch rollers of your children's bones and habits.
I am keeper of the stories falling under the table. I am keeper of the virus of memory. I am adopted. Too often my dreams are full of strangers and my pockets [00:47:00] full of someone else's keys. My burden is to know everything and be asked nothing. I was born anyway. A kind of bastard with a license. I will have to be penciled in at the corners.
My mugshot will have to be footnoted in your family album. I will be recalled like a ghost, haunting the smallest real estate of your unused rooms. I will be fed everything you can't stomach. My mask is made to resemble your father, who taught me how to build a house of bottles and fish bones. But not how to keep it warm if I'm the only one in it.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much. I, in preparation for our conversation today, I watched many of your readings and listened to interviews, read a bunch of interviews you've done. And you're just [00:48:00] like, I mean, electricity is what I got. And so amazing to hear that from you. Oh, I know we're not in the same room, but I just, oh, that was so amazing.
James Cagney: I'm so honored that, I so thank you for that. I feel like one of the main reasons that I finally pushed myself to publish a book is because as a younger person, especially after this got revealed to me when I was 20, and then I started being introduced to the world of poetry, I never heard anybody talk about being adopted.
I never ran into poems or stories that covered this. It was like there was a sudden conversation that I felt like I needed or wanted to really have about this. And strangely enough, I couldn't do it with the only person I trusted, which is my mother, because it would suddenly make her feel a little bit different.
So it was there was nowhere for me to really go to process this. And there was no obvious places of conversation or any place I could turn for this. And I realized what an incredible, [00:49:00] blessed resource you're providing by doing this podcast. That it may have been a help to me as a 19-year-old finding this show if it existed back then, and hearing different conversations and different perspectives would've been a great help to me because I felt so massively isolated.
Yeah, I really thank you for for doing and producing this show because, in sitting here talking about this with you now which I haven't really done in a really long time, there really is no forum for me to clear my head about this kind of story, and I just want to give thanks to you for even, thinking to come up with a way for these stories to get out.
And to be shared. So thank you for creating this and doing this process. It's a, it's an incredible thing.
Haley Radke: Thank you, James. That's very kind. I want to make sure people grab your books. You've two award winning books of poetry. And so what you read from and the other poem that you talked about are both in Black Steel Magnolias and the Hour of Chaos Theory.
And I'm going to link to a blog [00:50:00] post where you describe coming up with the name for this as well. And then your latest is Martian, the Saint of Loneliness, and your poetry is so vibrant. It feels alive. It's narrative poetry and you have this I'll just describe your word choice as luscious. You're, it's just tremendous.
I've heard you say, you've called Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory the stand in for your autobiography. And for adoptees there's so much that resonates I think, in this first one. And then you have this really tremendous poem in Martian, The Saint of Loneliness, called The Mask, that I hope folks will also read because I really, yeah, that really spoke to me.
James Cagney: Thank you for that.
Haley Radke: I hope you might consider joining us for a book club.
James Cagney: We should talk about that. I don't know about the [00:51:00] book club.
Haley Radke: Okay. Okay. I think we'll choose one of your books of poetry for our 2024 book club. That would be really amazing. What would you like to recommend to us?
James Cagney: Here in the Bay Area, and as I said, a couple of minutes ago, when I was, 19 I guess that was Yikes, the early mid 90s or something like that or late 80s or wherever I was.
There were no real resources that were obvious for me to turn to, to figure anything out. I did eventually get to sit with a therapist and he ended up recommending to me an organization called PACT. here in the East Bay area, which is for adult adoptees. And I guess some youth adoptees as well, because I guess, they do a lot of work in adoption services here in the East Bay.
That is the organization that I really appreciate that exists. And I feel like it is extraordinarily rare and I give blessings to what they do. I actually went to one of their adult adoptee open [00:52:00] circles cause I guess they do a regular meetup of people to go and visit and talk about what's been going on with their situation.
I went to one of those and, couldn't go back because my own introversion and my own sort of dislike of being in public like that. But I really love and support what they are doing and I feel like that was an extraordinary thing. And I do wish that was available to me when I was a 19-year-old versus when I was in my 40s, when I ended up actually getting to go and finding out about it.
So that's what I would like to recommend back to everybody in your audience, especially those here in the Bay Area.
Haley Radke: Amazing. I'm just on their website, which we'll link to in the show notes, but it says we serve adopted children of color and their families. Honest, child centered, anti racist, lifelong education, support and community for adoptees of color and the people who love them.
So they have got lots of resources on their website, which is pactadopt.org. [00:53:00] All right, James, what a wonderful conversation. I wish we had more time but perhaps we'll discuss more of your poetry in book club.
James Cagney: Yeah, I'll be back.
Haley Radke: Where can we find your books and connect with you online?
James Cagney: You can connect with me online and certainly email me. That's been very successful at jamescagneypoet.com. Because if you're not careful, if you don't add poetry or African American, you're going to get the movie star if you try to Google me.
Haley Radke: Who is ironically, I think, an adoptive father.
James Cagney: Yeah it's very funny. It's very great. That's the whole conversation in and of itself.
Black Steel Magnolias and the Hour of Chaos Theory is available through a Black Lawrence Press which is this great, wonderful press. It's been doing lovely work. And Martian, the Saint of Loneliness is available through North Atlantic Press. And you can get that online yet and still
Haley Radke: Perfect.
James Cagney: I need to get more copies for myself, to be honest.[00:54:00]
Haley Radke: I wish I could reveal to you and maybe I will once we're done. My bookshelf behind me has over 170 adoptee authored books, many of which are poetry. And huh. I can't wait to show you my collection. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, James. I really appreciate it.
James Cagney: Thank you for having me. It was a wonderful conversation.
Haley Radke: I'm so excited. James is going to officially join us for Book Club in March of 2024. So we are going to be reading his poetry book, Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, which has many themes about adoption and what it's like to be an adoptee. This month in January 2024, if you're listening, when this show is released, we are [00:55:00] talking with Nicole Chung and Shannon Gibney, editors of the brand new YA anthology, When We Become Ours, along with two more of the contributing authors for Book Club.
You can join us for our live Zoom by going to adopteeson.com/bookclub for details. Patreon supporters are welcome. We also have a scholarship program, and if you want to just check it out, check Patreon out. What is this thing I'm always talking about? There is a seven day free trial.
So you can register and join us for that this month. And we are so grateful for every single supporter of the show. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you so much. I won't ever stop saying thank you because you truly make this show possible. Thank you. Thank you for listening. And let's talk again next Friday.[00:56:00]
