Welcome to my personal diary..


Thank you for joining me here.. I am a music maker and love sharing the artists I work with and meet in my adventurous life. I make short movies while traveling festivals around the country. I'm also into cooking and making jewelry and Mosaic art... I hope you will enjoy what I share...

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Lisa Lynne Adoption Story - Part Three

If your just now joining me, part one and two are listed down to the left in the archives.

In 1990 I received my first information about the circumstances of my adoption. My biological mother's privacy was protected by the LA county bureau of adoptions. So I couldn't know her name, but could leave a letter in my file. But only if she checked the file, it would be there for her. So I typed out one page on and old style typewriter and told her about my life. I had a wonderful family, a fine childhood, and that I was a musician, and a happy person. I said the things I loved and experienced. Mostly I let her know that I always thought so much of what she did, to give me up in hopes I would have a better life than she could give at the time.

Strangely, after I wrote the letter I felt a sense of peace about it knowing that if she wanted to look and see there would be a message from me there.  It's probably still there now.

To go back a little bit...

By 1985, I had been working as a professional musician. I moved from Orange County, CA to Hollywood and finally attended Musicians Institute of Technology in 1988 & 1989.

Right when I got into school in 1988, I had a car accident.  I had only whiplash but it ruined my van which I relied on for all my gigs. I had to take another three month Top 40 tour in Alaska to afford another van and re-start school again in six months. I learned about video editing on the side, and although I was in the bass guitar program, I ended up creating my first serious band for my harp.

After that I was working various music jobs and was also a cocktail waitress in a Hollywood club were I waited on rock stars and movie stars. I ended up writing a popular column in a music paper that tattled on the stars that were bad tippers. I was an anonymous columnist of "True Tales from Behind the Tray" by Jackie Daniels.

In 1990, we lost my father's father, Florencio S. Franco. a  loving man who adored is four sons, one daughter, 11 grandchildren including me, and many great grandchildren. He worked for the railroad in Los Angeles his whole life. He loved music and had a lovely soprano voice which he sang to us in Spanish. While his heart failed, my Nana never left his side. They were so in love, all the way to the end and married for over 50 years. He always said "mama was the boss". She wouldn't leave his hospital bedside. When finally she did for a moment to eat. He went to heaven. She lived another decade but counted the days until she would join him.



My sister Jenny married Jeff, a super terrific guy. They have two kids, Trevor and Annelyse who are a great joy in my life, the biggest blessing ever. I never had kids of my own, I love them as much as if they were mine.They are now 14 and 10.





We do a lot of fun stuff together, we make video movies with special effects, cooking shows.. music shows, dance parties, arts and crafts. Trevor's too old for that stuff by now, but Annelyse is always ready for fun. I visit them in Laguna Beach pretty often. My sister Jenny is the best mom ever.






My father was diagnosed with Cancer and twice he was able to beat it with surgery and radiation. In between those times he was able to enjoy traveling in his RV for  summer long trips with Margaret and visiting the kids and now grand kids.He still loved campfires and outdoor grilling and was always ready to go anywhere to see me play my music.We have so many great photos because Margaret was a photographer.


 My mom Carol never remarried but enjoyed a life of working in National Parks and living in beautiful places with mountains and forest. She loves nature so much. She, my aunt and my grandma were always doing crafts and inventing good ideas.

I was sending out tapes of my music while still waitressing and got my first record contract in Germany. I traveled there several years in a row to do concerts and make my first few records there.














Those records never quite made it to the US, so I was still street performing on Venice Beach Boardwalk. This lead to more traveling and street performing around the country and Canada.

International Buskers festival in Nova Scotia, Canada

 Ireland




There were years of day after day performing long hours for tips and tape sales in every place possible. College campuses, art fairs, street festivals and shopping malls. There were snow storms and broken down vans, terrible motels, walking pneumonia IRS audits and US Customs fines.

One time I had a late night gig, and an early morning recording session. I opted to park my van by my bedroom window and leave everything inside. When I came out  the van was gone. For three days I posted pictures of my harp at every pawn shop. That's all I cared about, not the guitars or mandolins or electric gear, I just wanted the harp. A Latin TV station I had just performed on showed pictures of the van and told my story. The next day the van was recovered and I was told to go to impound. The van had a screwdriver still stuck in the ignition. It was stripped and empty. Except for the harp.

 Somehow I sold over 100,000 tapes and CDs on my own little label. Because of that, I was invited to the top floor office with my harp to RCA/Windham Hill. I was asked to play my harp, and to show my manufacturing receipts for my CD sales. I was signed to a major recording contract.

Around that time I met my magical musical partner George Tortorelli at a festival in Florida. We were a couple for the first two years of our now 13 year friendship. He plays flutes for all my music, we have toured extensively as a duo and had every kind of adventure. He lives in Florida where we perform often. He was already a well known musician in his own rite. We have a very special sound that people truly love. He taught me all about enjoying life, shutting off the pager and canoeing through nature...and where to hang hammocks in Maui. He is truly the wise brother I always wanted in my life. Still is.

George and I at the Florida Folk Festival on the Swanee River

Right when my first major label album release came out, I had an extreme headache so I went to an emergency room and while I was filling out forms I had a seizure. I had brain swelling and the left side of the brain was torn in two places. I was in critical care and it was a mystery why it happened. I also developed blood clots in both of my legs from the hip to the ankle. I had emergency surgery to put a permanent device in my main artery that would protect my organs from stroke. I was bedridden for six months. It was a slow recovery and it was eventually determined that I had contracted west nile virus in Florida, which caused the brain swelling. I was trying to feed a baby owl that had fallen through a fireplace. The owl was sick and dying. The mosquitoes were biting the owl, and then me. The legs were hardest to endure and recover from. I have had a few more blood clots since then and my legs have never fully been the same.

So after all I had been through to that point in my music life, I missed my big chance to promote that album and do all the planned performances and activities around it.



 But the next year I had another chance, and things changed for me. I was touring in beautiful performing arts centers and theaters across the US. Making more records in fine studios, and performing with some of the greatest musicians you can imagine. After many tries I finally had a record in the Billboard Top 10 New Age Music charts. I had a full band of my dreams.


The best thing about this new level was the tools you get to use. Writing and recording the music was my highest love. To be able to record with state of the art technology was the greatest experience so far. To be able to hear at new levels.



My next very important relationship was with Gilberto "Gil" Morales. He was my good friend and gifted audio engineer for my music before we were together as a couple for eight years. He was an important part all that decade of music. He also was a musician who played many instruments. A true friend for life.














My fathers' mother Adelina lived a long life and we made a lot of plans that she would visit me from heaven and how I would know it was her.




 This is her 90th birthday party surrounded by all of her children. All my aunts and uncles and cousins I grew up with and their babies came together to honor Adelina. This is the whole Franco clan, me on the right.


Only the very last weeks of her 95 years did my Nana lose her memory. But in this moment when I held up her face she recognized me and Margaret took this photo. It came out with a white star reflection of light on her chest. She passed just a few days later.




As the record industry changed and the economy shifted, the big bus mega tours weren't happening  anymore. Windham Hill label folded up shop and I ended up signing to New Earth Records and working more on my own label and my own touring and promotions. I had a big experience around the Columbine tragedy and started doing Therapuetic music in hospitals. My programs grew faster than I could keep up with. Weekdays were playing music in intensive care units and weekends flying to the east coast for shows. I handled all parts of my business from my mobile office and worked a lot in airports. I never stopped day or night.  I got another blood clot in my hip while performing in Utah, and had emergency blood thinning shots, and now pills too.That was hard for me because I have always gone the natural route. But the blood thinners helped me out a lot. I finally admitted.


My father's Cancer returned and this time it was in his lungs behind his sternum and there was no solution for it. He endured many procedures to prolong his life. It was a hard four years while his health declined. Margaret was devoted to him every moment. They were so in love after 24 years of marriage. He just wanted us to be normal and kept telling us not to be sad and worry. How much he enjoyed his life. He never complained.
He kept telling us how proud he was of all of us.

I stayed there with them in Nevada to help Margaret and be there for his last part of life. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him, and how I couldn't have had a better dad in the whole world. There was so much I had to write it all out. Even though he already knew it. I wanted to tell him anyway everything I learned from him. And that I would do all the things he wished for me, and we would all be okay even though we would miss him our whole lives.

On one of the last days of his life, I read him my letter with shaky hands. Margaret took a picture of the hug he gave me. I will treasure this photo my whole life.


He died on January 22, 2009. With all of us around him.



My grandma on my moms side passed just a few months later. But she still came to my fathers memorial with my mom. She was sharp right to the end. She knew how to live and taught us all how to enjoy life. We released white balloons for her in the park where we gathered.



George and I had a funny gig playing on a cruise ship. I brought my mom along. We sailed the Caribbean and thought it was funny that folks kept wanting to hear our cosmic version of theme from Titanic.



I decided to start taking better care of myself and moved to a place right on the beach in Marina Del Rey for a year. I just kept taking walks to strengthen my legs and figure out what I was going to do differently than the workaholic thing.

Along came Aryeh, and his beautiful son Abraham. I fell in love with them both.
So I moved to San Francisco. Its a happy life here. A healthy life too. Aryeh is a great musician and we create music together as well. I love his parents too.


I still go to L.A often. I have my hospital music programs now over 10 years. I have special gigs and speaking engagements. I get invited to present my music and story at large conferences and spiritual retreats. I am fullfilled most when I bring my 15 harps to schools and hospitals to teach people to play. I still fly for shows and festivals, but half as much. I take more time off and spend time with my friends, I do cooking and mosiacs. I take much better care of my health.

My mom Carol and I bought a house together in Northwest Montana, she lives there now and we visit. She says she has never been happier in her life.









As I was just writing this, my mom just read part two
of my story and posted this: 

"Right now there are tears on my cheeks as I have just finished reading the blog my oldest daughter is writing about her adoption, childhood and search for her biological mother. I am crying because I made many mistakes over the years but I'm also crying because the woman gave me the greatest gift and these are tears of joy and gratitude."


 See how lucky I am?

 Jenny is a full fledged soccer mom. They are busy bees having lots of fun too. She's been married now for 16 years.


Margaret is just starting to come out a little bit. Her grief is long and hard. She visits us and I her. She carries on the festivities that she and Dad enjoyed doing for the kids. Her two daughters are grown. My stepsister Gwen and I visit sometimes.
We all miss my dad so much.



So, were up to date. An unusual set of divine interventions happen, and I decide it's time to look for my birth mother again.

I had no idea it was going to happen so fast.

End of part three.

Here is part four










Sunday, May 29, 2011

Vblog #36 Performance at Ohio Harp Gathering



Once a year in Northwestern Ohio, "The Harp Gathering" brings harp lovers and harp players from all over the country and Canada. They take workshops all day from incredible harp artists around the lovely Sauder Village Inn. In the evenings there are shows where wonderful performances from the visiting instructors take place. I got to hang with my buddies Kim Robertson, Charlene Wallace and Louis Trotter. There were several more amazing harpers that I had never met including the hosts Denise and Michael Grupp-Verbon from Tapestry, also Frank Voltz, and Timothy Harper from Canada. I was loaned this harp to use by Jeff Lewis from "Lewis Creek Harps" to use. As you can imagine, it was a love fest with all those lovely people and harp enthusiasts in one place, and it was a busy three days. I taught three workshops, one about working with other musicians, one about music business and promotion, and one about my "Hands-on-Harps" programs for hospital harp music. Every minute was fun, and the hotel was first class.
I edited together a few bits from my part of the evening concerts. For more information about this event, visit www.HarpGathering.com

Monday, May 16, 2011

Lisa Lynne Adoption Story - Part Two

This is part two of my adoption story. If your just joining me, there is "part one" below, just scroll down to the explanation there of my intentions with this writing and how the story begins. Thank you all so much for the support you are giving me. I'm so glad I have all of you to share this experience with. It gives me courage. 

Here goes..

There are two parallel things happening at the same time.
Once I made the decision to hire a specialist to help find my biological mother, its happening much faster than I imagined. There are lists, names and possibilities already emerging, and I am pulling open boxes of photos from my life. I feel as though I'm running to catch up, and also going backwards in time. I want to have my story place in case I make contact with any of my biological relations. In case she would rather not meet, maybe she would read this and know I was okay.

There is a lot of curiosity from my family and friends, so I will tell you this much. Soon I will be caught up with the back story and we'll be in real time. 

Based on my unique circumstances and a very common maiden name of my birth mother. It's a miracle we can narrow it down. But we have. There are 347 potential women that match the information. From that, there are 47 in California, eleven in Los Angeles, (where I was adopted) and there is one of the 47, who might have all the right details that we are looking for. I have a name, the contact info, and it will be up to me to make the first contact. I'm getting advised how to do it. And I'll go one by one down a list until I find the woman who has been in Thailand.

I get a little dizzy just thinking about what I'll say, but I am being coached by an expert with vast experience at bringing out the best situation possible. I am going to try my best to go about this with the best wisdom I can. It's possible I will have answers very soon. So I'm rushing to write this down!

So, this story is for my biological mother, this is what happened in my next chapter of life.

I left off when I was eight, learning to play guitar. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. It shook my soul. When I first saw my twin cousins playing their guitars, I was transfixed. They taught me "Blowing in the Wind" and I played it over and over, and bought my first guitar with my own saved money from the Sears catalog for $14.99. After some lessons my dad surprised me with a new classical guitar from Mexico. My first guitar became a home for my hamster.

Two years later my parents separated and then divorced. I took it really hard. My mom tried to explain that people who marry young often grow apart. I was angry and sad. We moved to Long Beach and I suffered migraine headaches and stomach aches for the next several years. I didn't like my very curly hair so I tried everything to straighten it. I had to baby sit a lot and I regret to this day how I was mean to my sister.






My dad picked us up for every other weekend. He did as well as he could, he showed up for us. In their 16 year marriage he was a homicide and narcotics detective in East LA. An intense job, and those guys partied pretty hard to relieve the stress. When my mom left to find herself and seek a happier life, he was suffering. He remarried quickly to another sheriff woman who felt envious of his great love for his daughters. It only lasted for seven years, but that was a hard time of life for all of us. My father later referred to that time as his darkest seven years. They were mine too.

My mom was working two or three jobs to make ends meet. At home I was a gloomy teenager who blamed her for the divorce. I was often not helpful and disobeyed.

Not long ago, when I was remembering those years with my mom. I said I felt so sorry how I was. I would even endure puberty again if I could do that part over. She said she didn't remember that I was bad, she remembered that I was sad.

My mom Carol during my teenage years

Jr. high and high school were not my finest years, but
there were two very bright spots, music and sports. I found out I could run and high jump, so I did that. My dad drove far to my track meets to cheer me on. I was also on a softball team that went to the championship. I was just an okay player, but while daydreaming in center field a game winning home run hit came right to me. I froze, but held out my shaking glove. The ball plopped in, and we won the championship. They hoisted me up and I cried happy tears. I couldn't believe it.

And of course there was always music. It was the ongoing soundtrack of my life which I buried myself in. At every age I was consumed with albums of the time, pop music, rock music, even classical and Latin music. Every night I spent holding my transistor radio to my ear under the covers and listening for hours to AM pop radio of the 70's. I made up shows with the kids I babysat. We pretended to be in bands like the Partridge family with big adventures.


In high school I met two singing sisters. They had sweet harmony voices so we sang songs of of my favorite groups. This was the beginning of my soul waking up.


Things got better. We moved from a tough Jr. High school in Long Beach to Huntington where I spent my teenage years. I spent high school being shy and quiet, but finally found friends with some fellow misfit musicians. I moved out of my moms apartment at 16 and started playing electric guitar and bass in garage bands. I always had a part time job and did well wherever I worked. I was good at creative writing in school. I graduated Marina high school in 1981.

During that time I also experienced an awakening of sort. I was given a simple book about meditation so I tried deep breathing and relaxing my head and stomach. I stopped being so worried all the time and realized that I could choose to be happy and be relaxed about things. Like a veil was lifted, it happened very swiftly. I started again to understand how lucky I was. I went back into a place of thankfulness. Like how I felt as a girl, and I've been there ever since.

I loved getting dressed up with my friend and playing our original mandolin music at Renaissance fairs.





It was at the Renaissance fair in Agoura, California that I first discovered the Celtic Harp in a booth selling harps. I sat down at it and felt the most familiar thing I had ever felt. I could play all the chords I knew on guitar. It took me a year to save up $700.00 for my first harp. It was 1985. I was totally in love with the harp. My heart and hands felt on fire when I played.

From around 18-20 years old, I was working in retail at a record store. I was the youngest assistant manager in the chain. I had headaches often, and a hurting stomach when I took aspirin. One day it was unbearable so I went to a hospital. It was a perforated ulcer that tore a whole wall of my stomach. I had emergency surgery that saved my life. I had to lay flat for three months to heal. I still have a long scar from it.Thankfully, I had always paid my health insurance.

Not long after I turned 21, I was willingly drafted into  playing bass for an all female classic rock/blues band that had steady gigs at biker bars and military basses. I joined and played full time with them 3-5 nights a week for the next eight years.

I also worked as a food waitress in the daytime and went part time to Jr. college for music. I traveled to Greenland and Alaska on long tours playing top 40 music for dance clubs. I also played in a popular original band of all guys that played heavy metal in clubs around Orange country. I brought my harp everywhere and even on the hard rock stage to see if the rocker kids would like it, and they did.

Exploring Greenland
 The traveling I was doing was not glamorous. It was playing bass doing Top 40 music six sets a night, six nights a week in various dance clubs or military bases.

During the daytime I would go off exploring various things to see. I always took my harp on the road with me too.


When I was not traveling I was playing harp at restaurants, for weddings, and any kind of job I could find. I was determined to save enough money to go to Musicians Institute in Hollywood. It was my dream to study there and it took me a quite few years and a lot of waitress tips to save the tuition. 


The Island of Sitka, Alaska,

The early 80's was a great time for my Dad. He met Margaret, it was true love for real. Margaret was also a single mom working hard to support two daughters of her own. It was true love. Soulmates. They married in 1985. Margaret was a happy addition to our family and uncountable good times were had. So I had yet another mother to love too!  She made my dad so happy, and that made us happy too.



I was always very close to both of my grandmothers, and was so lucky to have them well into my adult years.


My fathers mother Adelina Franco was a traditional Mexican grandmother. She adored all of her children and grandchildren, of which there were many.
I visited and stayed with her often especially in the later years of her life. She was always blessing, and kissing and praying. She enjoyed her Spanish soap operas and nobody could come close to her cooking, as much as we tried.

Margaret Hughes was my mothers mother, she was a world traveler and we went on many trips to Mexico together. Her favorite place was Mazatlan.

Even though I had so much love in my family, I always wanted find to find my birth mother to let her know, if she ever wondered or worried what became of me, that I had a good life, and I always understood she did a great and selfless thing for me. At first, it was going to try right when I was 18, then 21 and each time, I put it off, thinking that I wanted to be far in my music career so she would be very proud of me.

But the years went by, and I was a struggling musician for a really long time. I always thought it would cost a lot of money to find her. But I was finally well at least with supporting myself with music. So I took the first step by at least writing to the original adoption agency.

It took over a year for them to pull my file. They could not release names but they could release some general info. So a big envelope came, and it was so big to me that I would know something. It took me days until I could even open it. This was what was inside.





It went on to say that the birth mother was 24, her height and weight, and her special interests were music, dancing and all sports. She had a brother who was 16, her mother was a seamstress who was separated from her father.

It said the birth father was Polish, born in New Jersey, 23 years old. 6.1 with hazel eyes, black hair and fair complexion. He was a recruiting soldier in the marines who enjoyed fishing and hunting. They were engaged, but she broke up with him and opted not to tell him of the pregnancy. So he never knew I was born.

I remember reading these papers over and over a thousand times. The adoption lady said even though I could not contact, I could put something in my file, and my birth mother was free to check the file if she ever wanted, so I wrote her a letter.

End of part two.

Here is part three