Basically, I Was a Bagel
Interrogating the story of my adoption
It was a bagel store. You know, glass bins side by side, each containing a different flavor. Poppy next to sesame next to everything. The store itself was nondescript. My vision was about the deliciousness you see when you walk through the door.
At an age I cannot remember, because I have just always known, my parents told me they had adopted me. They had chosen me.
Like a bagel.
My favorite thing to do with my dad was get a cinnamon raisin bagel at David’s Bagels, so it must have worked like that. They walked into a store with side-by-side glass bins, saw all the babies and saw me, and I was the cutest so they chose me.
Like a bagel.
There’s also this. She came to New York to hide her pregnancy. Only her brother knew. She kept me for three months before realizing she could not manage motherhood so she put me up for adoption.
I coped with the incomprehensible by creating an idyllic fantasy, a rescue myth.
They hid me for three months?
So, a woman with no name or face tried to keep me with no one knowing, but realized she couldn’t, so because she loved me she gave me away to strangers…
