Title:
Finding Karen Black: Roots Become Wings
Author:
Diane Bay
Genre:
Memoir
Book Blurb:
Mother and daughter, reunited just in time.
Hollywood actress Karen Black gave up a newborn daughter to adoption in 1959. For five decades they knew nothing about each other. But strict adoption laws could not break their mother-daughter bond.
When the state finally opened the sealed records, Diane was amazed to discover that her birth mother was the actor whose unconventional beauty had captured the zeitgeist of the ’60s and ’70s cinema. Karen starred in some of the decades’ prominent films including Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Great Gatsby, Airport 1975, and many more.
Their reunion was healing and bittersweet, because it came at a pivotal moment: Karen was battling cancer.
Finding Karen Black: Roots Become Wings takes the reader on an emotional journey from childhood longing to dream fulfilled, and from the first moments of a joyful reunion through a year of discovery, loss, and renewal. This remarkable story is a testament to the power of the mother-child bond, the importance of our roots, and the belief that love lasts forever.
Excerpt:
During this time, while my heart was heavy, something unexpected happened.
One early night, Rich called me over to his computer desk in the kitchen. He was on Facebook, and he wanted to show me something Stephen had posted.
“It’s your mom singing,” Rich said. I stood behind him to watch the video.
Karen was dressed up in a plum sweater, sitting at a piano in a festive living room, next to a woman I hadn’t met. The ambient sound of a party surrounded them. My first thoughts were, she looks so well! When was this? Later, I found out it was a 2012 Academy Award party. The woman next to her at the piano was her friend, Azalia Snail.
They were smiling, heartily belting out a rendition of the Gershwin song, “Summertime.” My heart seemed to forget how to beat as I heard her exuberant voice singing the lyrics, addressed to a child:
One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing
And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky
But till that morning, there ain’t nothin’ can harm you
With daddy and mammy standin’ by…”
I stood stunned. Sudden, powerful emotions filled my chest and tears poured from my eyes. Was she thinking of me as she sang, remembering the baby she’d named Nina?
Rich wasn’t sure how to react. “You okay, Di?”
“Yeah… I don’t know… maybe not. I need a minute,” I said and retreated into our bedroom when the video was over. Switching on the nightstand lamp, I sat heavily on the bed and sobbed. When the tears subsided, I wiped my eyes and wrote in my journal to try and make sense of my perplexing reaction:
Today I heard my birth mother sing, really sing. Her voice did something to my heart I want to understand. A dark, locked place inside me broke open. Out poured feelings of sorrow, of abandonment—I’ve never felt abandoned since the earliest time I can remember. The trauma was hidden deep inside. And the reason it came out is because here was my mother, so alive and on fire in her soul, and I did not grow up with this light in my life. I was an ember kept burning only from within, when I could have nestled close to her and become a flame. We are so much alike! I have never had anyone at all who truly understood me, and here she is, myself mirrored, and she denied me this most precious relationship.
Maybe it’s even a stirring of memory from when Karen was carrying me—she told me she sang to me back then. I could be reliving the internal struggle of a newborn being torn from my mother. This makes sense with the depth of emotion I feel, and with abandonment coming to the surface.
Some of the emotion is positive, too, more like a fire burning in my soul, like something has been rekindled. I hope and pray for more time with my birth mom!!
The next day, I texted Karen about hearing the song. I told her that listening to her sing did something deep in my heart I didn’t understand yet, as if a long-buried place was awakened.
She replied, Oh my. It’s like the freedom in your soul can be likened to mine!
Her response touched me so deeply, I didn’t mention the rest. She didn’t need to read it in a text, anyway. Instead, I expressed myself in a poem, and thoughts began to pour into my journal. What might I have gone through as a lonely infant? If I had felt abandoned, how did I make it through nine weeks living in the sterile adoption agency? Did I have a kind nurse? Maybe she was the same woman who let Karen see me in the nursery. How did I adjust to a brand-new life afterward? As I wrestled with these questions, emotions roiled. One day while I wrote, a truth surfaced about something that had puzzled me since childhood.
In my mind, I was back in my crabapple tree in the backyard, enjoying the tiny pink blossoms in spring and sour red fruit in summer. I again felt the peace and sadness I had called my melancholy. A unique, dual emotion that didn’t have a true name, a mingling of emptiness, wholeness, and serenity. There was something inexpressibly wonderful about it. Through the years, at quiet times alone, I would sit still and let it draw me inward to a cozy space in my heart.
My pen paused above the page as realization dawned. Tears came. I knew what the melancholy was, why I cherished this place inside me that felt safe but sad: it was all I had left of my birth mother. It was a warm natal recollection of Karen, from within her womb, wrapped in the trauma of abandonment.
I had found her in my own heart. She’d been with me all my life.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
What’s your favorite thing about autumn:
Definitely the colors! As a visual artist, I am in love with the warm side of the spectrum that surrounds us in the fall.
What inspired you to write this story:
I discovered that my birth mother was one of Hollywood’s iconic figures: Karen Black was a central figure in the New Hollywood of the 1970s. When I sent her a message on Facebook, her reply changed my life, as she welcomed me into her heart and her home.
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $100 Amazon gift card.
Open internationally.
Runs September 1 – 30, 2024
Drawing will be held on October 1, 2024.
Author Biography:
Diane Bay is an artist and author. She studied graphic arts and creative writing at the College of DuPage. Like her birth mother Karen Black, Diane loves life and lives in the present moment. Her passion is painting. She currently lives in Central Florida. She and her husband, Rich, have three adult sons and four grandchildren.
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