Author Q&A with Cynthia Landesberg

Born in Busan, South Korea, and adopted by Jewish parents, Cynthia Landesberg grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where she still resides. She is a mother, lawyer, and writer. You can find her writing in The Washington Post, Witness, and on her website, www.adoptionsquared.com.

Tell us about yourself. 

I am the product of an unknown Korean birth mother and birth father, a legacy that is lost to me, and has left me without roots. I was raised in a Jewish American home in Maryland, and carry their love and their best intentions with me. I am a wife and mother of three children and one dog. I left my career in law to homeschool my children and create a homeschool community that is diverse and intentional. I am a struggling perfectionist, who dreams of spending more time writing, watercoloring, and reading, and less time agonizing over the last conversation I had or re-reading the emails I send. 

What inspired you to write Life Must Go On over other life experiences you’ve had? 

I carry deep regret for not traveling to see my grandfather before he passed and for not attending his funeral. Finding a way to honor his memory and my relationship with him in those last years seemed impossible for a long time. However, after beginning to write and publish, I finally saw a way towards a proper goodbye.

How did corresponding with your grandfather through letters change you and/or your outlook? 

My primary memories of my grandfather prior to our correspondence are his worn leather slippers padding around his condo, and the smell of his aftershave. I only saw him once or twice a year and he mostly talked about sports, stocks, and the good deals he got at a restaurant or store. He was kind and warm, but I did not know him. 

Writing to each other allowed us to say things that were either too important or too trivial to say in person, like feelings and fears and annoyances and the daily triumphs that are often forgotten. Through writing, my grandfather became a fully formed human being, with humor, flaws, and a whole lot of resilience. I learned the power of writing as a unique and irreplaceable form of communication. 

How, as a nonfiction writer, do you filter out a story to share over all of your many life experiences? 

I focus on whatever is emotionally resonant to me, trusting that if I write from there, the piece will carry that feeling to the reader. I look for universal themes and give the most salient examples of it in my life to carry the story. 

How do you hope these stories will help others or perhaps help you? 

I have spent most of my life feeling pretty out of place and lonely. Being Korean in a Jewish family, I never fit in. I can name the first Asian person I saw on TV (Connie Chung) and the first book that featured Asian characters (The Good Earth), and neither of them were Korean or adopted or raised in Jewish families. I try to imagine my life with mirrors of Korean Americans and adoptees, and I believe it would have been so much more full. I hope these stories will give a mirror to someone who needs to feel a little less alone. 

Of all your published pieces, which ones makes you feel the most proud and why? 

This feels like asking “which of your children is your favorite?” I am proud of all my writing, both published and unpublished. It all feels necessary to where I am now. I feel particularly warm towards the op-ed in The Washington Post because I had the guts to press submit, towards “Seven Weeks” in Grace in Love because I did my first reading of that piece in person and it has been nominated for a Pushcart, and towards “Extinction” in the Lumiere Review because it was my first fiction piece published. 

Tell us about Adoption Squared. 

I am much too anxious to have any regular or significant social media presence. When I started publishing, I decided a website and blog would be the best way for me to present my work and interact with readers. I named it Adoption Squared because I write at the intersection of being an adoptee and an adoptive parent. I am not a regular blogger, but I am regularly comforted by its presence as a place where I can experiment, engage with readers, and have a place where no one can say “no” to publishing my work. I find it an empowering and hopeful space. 

How has writing about various aspects of your life as an adopted child benefitted your parenting of adopted children? Or yourself? 

Adoptees use the common phrase of “coming out of the fog” when it comes to facing the difficult aspects about being adopted. It’s the process of challenging the popular adoption narrative of saviorism and gratitude, and digging in deeper as to how adoption affected so much of an adoptee’s life. Writing about my adoption was a huge step in coming out of that fog for me. It forced me to explore, feel, and articulate how adoption affected my life. And the more I can find that honesty, the more I can walk with my kids as they figure out their relationship with adoption. 

What do you think when you hear the term “The Good Life”? 

My dad used to say, “This is the life!” whenever we were enjoying the simple things like a bowl of Breyers vanilla ice cream or a Orioles game at Camden Yards, and so I grew up thinking that a good life was one with ease, leisure, and simplicity. There’s a nostalgia to that definition. It is a cousin to “the good old days.” I spent many years striving for that version of life. To do that, I had to ignore the complexity of my identity, my lost country, culture, and family, and try to fit into this Norman Rockwell version of contentedness. 

The irony of course is that once I let go of that dream, and embraced the messiness and complexity of life, I began enjoying the simple pleasures much more. A good life is not something you can strive for, but instead comes whenever you are at peace with all the complexity of yourself. 

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Cynthia’s nonfiction piece, Life Must Go On, is featured in Issue #13 of The Good Life Review.

Thank you, Cynthia, for trusting us with your story and for the sincere and direct answers to our questions. We wish you the best!