A Wish for Ashley

The news this week was filled with stories about the arrest of Professor Gates, the response of the officer, the response of President Obama and the response of the American public.  People have been jabbering back and forth about whether racial profiling is a “card” used by black people or whether it actually still exists.  I’m not about to weigh in on that here.  This is about finding Ashley, after all.  However, as I spent the weekend walking the streets of Cambridge- blocks from Mr. Gates’ home, as it were- I found that my subconscious was racially profiling every individual I passed.  Why?  Because I was playing my favorite game: Find the Mixed Person!

Many of you may not be familiar with version 1.0 of this game: Find the Black Person.  The autobiographical genius Angela Nissel aptly describes the game in her book “Mixed,” as “…a very popular African American game… It’s mostly played at opera houses, exclusive restaurants (busboys don’t count), watching Nascar races on television, and when you move into a new suburban neighborhood.”  Find the Mixed Person can also be played in those contexts, but there’s the added challenge of knowing how to identify a Mixed Person in the first place.  My siblings and I- being Mixed People ourselves- are always on the look out for hair with that *special* texture, features that look just a deviation or two from the norm, eye colors that are unique when paired with the hair and skin colors… and when we see those traits we get SO EXCITED!  We make eye contact with the spotted MP, we nod, give a slight smile and- without fail- the subject gives us a knowing nod and smile back.  We each make a tally mark on our mental scorecard- mixed person spotted!!!!- and go on with our day, with a bit of a spring in our step knowing that- like aliens- we’re not the only ones out there. 

I bring this up because as I walked around this weekend I realized that throughout my adolescence the thrill of Find the Mixed Person for me has not only been about validation of my racial identity, but also the thrill of potentially one day spotting and finding Ashley.  Get ready for a revelation: A Wish for Ashley is like Find the Mixed Person... on steroids!  Don’t get me wrong, I want to find her because ever since the age of six I have considered her to be a sister, and I have loved and missed her as a sister- not because I'm looking for another tally mark.  But also because, while not conflicted (really, popular media, mixed people are not confused. They just think in more dimensions than you're able to deal with at the moment- catch up, will you?), many Mixed People I know come to understand themselves better by understanding the stories of their families and hybridizing them in a way that is meaningful and personal.

Ashley may be playing Find the Mixed Person too, and if she's anything like my siblings, she's probably pretty good at it.  However, she probably doesn’t have the luxury of debriefing the days’ scorecard with a bunch of others who truly understand what it's like to be asked 'what are you?' on a daily basis and she surely doesn't have a chance to listen to and hybridize the stories that I'm able to with my sisters and brother.  Many of the stories that have helped me better conceptualize my identity are closely tied to my Uncle Will and I just wish she had the opportunity to hear those stories about her dad and figure out what, if anything, they mean to her and her understanding of self.  

So while I don’t advocate racial profiling by any means… for the success of A Wish for Ashley I am, in fact, encouraging you to play my favorite game.  Now I realize many of my helpers may not be Mixed People who can play the game properly (by giving and receiving the secret ‘ah ha! There’s one!’ smile and nod) so for the sake of racial unity and inclusion, I’ll suggest a modification: If you’re walking around and spot a possible Ashley Mixed Person, yell out her first name.  Loud. If she turns around, send her my way.  If it’s my cousin, I’ll owe you forever.  If it’s not, at the very least you can rest easy that you gave this crazed mixed girl a reason to believe she’s not the only strange haired, oddly featured, weirdly eyed person out there…  

With love (and no naivety that we are a post-racial society in the Obama era... ha),
Audra

I’m a humanities person.  I read, I write, I analyze and I begin again.  I don’t do numbers. I hate math (I once taught a group of middle school students to do long division in the wrong direction- left to right? Right to left? Who knows?! That’s what a calculator is for!) and if you want to experience the patented Audra glare, just ask me to produce a graph (my boss did once. She recently resigned. Hmm…).

So when Boyfriend supportively suggested that I create a Twitter account for ‘A Wish for Ashley’ to get the word out that way, I will admit, I did not enthusiastically log-on.  Why? Because I always equated Twitter with nerds. And nerds with math. And math with- nope, not for me! (Mind you, said boyfriend is one of those nerds, so, well… go figure).  However, because I’m desperate, I logged on, created a profile and listened to Boyfriend’s advice: start following as many random people as possible because “sooner or later they’ll start following you.”  Keeping with the theme of this project, I searched “Ashley” and selected some to follow.  Then I sat back, waiting for some of them to start following me.  

Oh I got some followers alright. 48 of them to be exact. All of them offering me access to porn.  Apparently in Twitterland, having your profile picture be a seven-year-old child, and your username be wishing for something means one thing: you’re a pedophile.  

I blocked them all, but let me tell you, I’m still not so sure about this Twitter thing.  So if you’re reading this, are on Twitter, and are not offering porn, follow me (awishforashley) and change my mind about this form of social media.  Because otherwise I will firmly hold onto the following non-judgmental belief (created with flawless mathematical logic):  Twitter is for nerds, nerds like math, math is boring, boring people have no friends, having no friends means certainly no girlfriend, no girlfriend means ‘going elsewhere’, ‘going elsewhere’ means porn, and porn- nope, not for me!

With love (and a complete distrust of 140-character statements of self),
Audra

I’m less than 24 hours into this project, and ever since I began I have experienced a great spectrum of emotions.  From the high I felt when finally clicking 'Publish' on the website (technology is not my strong point. My creating a website- albeit amateur- is a minor miracle), to the lows of doubting myself, this project and wondering if we'll ever find my cousin Ashley, I've been that overemotional girl that I would normally roll my eyes about.  But I couldn't help it, I was missing Will so much today.  So much so that I silenced the voice in my head that feeds my fear of dogs- 'that animal is going to eat you!' it screams whenever a four-legged creature is within eyesight- just long enough to give Zak- Will's loveable yet still completely terrifying yellow lab- a dog treat because it makes me feel closer to him.  However, even that little action (and the fact Zak did not take off one of my appendages in the process) was not enough to stop me from feeling really sad by afternoon.

Then I signed onto the ‘Ashley Wish’ facebook account to accept some friend requests.  As I came online, a random ‘Ashley Marie’ I friended earlier popped up to say hello in a chat window.  No, it wasn’t my cousin (ha, like it'll be that easy), but it was a girl who took an interest in this project after receiving the friend request and who took it upon herself to do some searches for Ashley McFarland on Myspace.  When I thanked her for sending me links to possible matches she simply replied “no problem. I’d want the same.” 

Ashley Marie not only made me smile, but she also gave me a dose of much-needed optimism (yeah, the optismism I described in my first post was short lived) that some day I’ll find the Ashley Marie I’m looking for.  My college friends will also appreciate that my first Ashley helper is from Georgia... you read it here first, Audra is singing the praises of a Southerner.  So it is with great gratitute- and well, irony- that I say: thank you Ashley Marie of Georgia, you’re what this is all about.   

With love (and conviction that it will still take an earth-shattering event to get me to willingly drop below the Mason-Dixon line again),

Audra

My friends always tell me I should write a book because of all the crazy experiences my family has shared.  In theory I agree with them, but in practice I've never known where to start.  This is not my book; in fact, it may just end up being fodder for another chapter in that 'someday-I'll-write-it' autobiography.   However, it is a start, which I can only hope will bring me the happy ending of finding Ashley. 

I have a feeling that the people who initially see this- the people who know me personally- will probably think I've gone crazy.  I'm not an outgoing person or a very 'get-in-my-business' type.  In fact, for much of my childhood my family called me a mute because of my complete dislike for speaking and sharing of myself.  However, I hope that those people I know, and those of you who stumble upon this site and don't know me, will come to understand that I am fully aware that this is a crazy idea.  Because if you can understand that, you can appreciate how important is it to me, to my mom, to my siblings and to my late Uncle Will that we find Ashley.

Why 'A Wish for Ashley'?  Well, because long before Will was diagnosed with cancer, long before he made his wish, I have been searching for my cousin.  I've done public records searches, google searches, facebook searches, I even created a dummy account to do sketchy Myspace searches... and in eight years I have not found anything remotely promising.  Since Will and Ashley's birth mom signed over their parental rights, and my mom (as her biological aunt) has no legal claim to her, we won't get far with state agencies.  The last time we saw Ashley was in 1995 and she was in the Massachusetts foster care system.  Now she would be 21, free of the system, and she could be anywhere.

Ashley is a very common name.  Based on the number of google and facebook hits, Ashley Marie apparently is too.  I'm assuming Ashley has a different last name now because of the lack of luck I have had searching her birth name, so the commonality of 'Ashley' and 'Ashley Marie' has been the greatest challenge in finding my cousin.  However if my Uncle Will has taught me anything, it is to use challenges to your advantage: to make you stronger, to make you a better person.  The idea for this website was inspired by his example, so I want to turn the challenge of there being so many Ashleys out there into an advantage in getting the word out about one Ashley:  Ashley Marie McFarland. 

I know it's a crazy idea, but my family thrives on crazy- hey, it's better than being ordinary.  I don't expect you to believe this approach will be successful, but I hope you believe that it could be if people like you get every Ashley you know to this website. 

Regardless of your level of skepticism, I'll periodically keep you updated on how the search progresses until the day our wish for Ashley is granted. Fingers crossed.

With love (and totally out-of-character optimism),

Audra