Abandoned at birth, left by a young woman in a Rochester, New York, washroom, A. K. Driggs’ life has been anything but ordinary. ADVERTISING Abandoned at birth, left by a young woman in a Rochester, New York, washroom, A. K.
Abandoned at birth, left by a young woman in a Rochester, New York, washroom, A. K. Driggs’ life has been anything but ordinary.
It all started Jan. 24, 1954, when a bustling little baby girl was found bundled in a blanket tucked in a paper bag left in a bar and grill washroom. Though deemed unadoptable because of physical traits, Driggs’ would be welcomed into the home of a loving couple several years later.
With the love of Bob and Betty Driggs, and her also-adopted brother, Chip, the dark-haired girl went on to live an extraordinary life filled with tales of being animal communicator, musical prodigy, bisexual lover, and phone-sex recording artist, among many other roles.
Driggs, also known as Ann Kimberly Driggs, now 61 and living in Kailua-Kona, puts it all on the table in her first book, “Abandoned in Search of Rainbows.” The 200-plus-page memoir hit bookshelves in October.
“People have been telling me throughout my life that I need to write a book because I had this extraordinary beginning and life,” said Driggs. “The book really talks about on one level the relation of child and adoption and how the amazing relationship had with parents and the role they played in overcoming my abandonment issues.”
Driggs said she started working on the book a couple of years ago after having a dream.
“I woke up at 1 a.m., heard a little voice, ‘it’s time, it’s time. You have to write the book, people need it, the world is a mess right now, people are in fear, people are sad there is a lot going on. Stop worrying just do it,’” she said.
With the help of close friend and author Gail Provost Stockwell she wrote and self-published the book via Book Publishers Network.
Abandoned in Search of Rainbows takes the reader on a roller coaster through six decades of Driggs’ life starting from being abandoned at birth along sometimes bumpy tracks up and down and around her struggles and triumphs to becoming the woman she is today. With candor, it delves into her sexuality and “coming out,” and being bullied for her differences, as well as her professional music career and year spent as “Angela,” a name she used while working as a phone sex operator in the 1980s in Los Angeles.
“Sexuality and coming out is a very painful experience even today in our world, even though it is more accepted, it’s tough. The book tells those who are in that situation to come to terms and be OK with yourself,” she said. “I was lucky — after all of this, the journey, I was able to find my soul mate and finally legally get married.”
She also tells of overcoming breast cancer and “coming home” to Hawaii, a place she first saw on a postcard sent from her vacationing parents when she was 8 years old. Though she’d spent time in Hawaii yearly since the 1990s, she finally made it “home” to the Big Island after her first visit here in 2003 following her final chemo treatment. Since making her and Janet’s home in Kailua-Kona in early 2004, Driggs said she has been “clear, clean” and “everything is great with my health.”
“It’s a whole chapter about being a survivor what happens when you got through cancer the emotions, feelings, chemo radiation and most importantly the caregiver, Janet,” she said, referring to her wife. “What does a caregiver go through? They suffer right along with you.”
In the end, everything comes full circle and Driggs gets back to her true love: singing and music, a gift she discovered and honed from time she was a tot in her parents’ backyard in New York.
“In the last chapter, I suddenly said, ‘Stop, you’re a sham, you can’t put this book out because you’re not even playing your guitar, how can you put a book out about this,’” Driggs said, adding she then pulled out her guitar, but realized it was too big before switching to her 1933 Sunburst Guitar.
“I started playing and got a tingly feeling through my body and a song came forth — the first song I’d written, ‘I found the rainbow,’” she remembered. “This process brought me home. So, now I have my guitar, I am playing again, I am outflowing to all living creatures. I go to the humane society and go into cages and sing to all the animals, kitties and dogs, and take them for walks. This last chapter is the one that brings it home.”
A portion of the proceeds from book and music sales will be donated to ocean, marine, animal and land conservation causes here in Hawaii and around the world, said Driggs. In the past, through her company Avatar Marketing, funds have been contributed locally to Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, Hawaii Island Humane Society, Three Ring Ranch and The Food Basket. Beyond Hawaii, they’ve donated to such groups as the World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of Wildlife and the Wildlife Society.
The book can be purchased online or locally at Kona Stories book store in the Keauhou Shopping Center and Basically Books in Hilo. Driggs will be at Kona Stories on Feb. 2. Check out Driggs’ album, “Journey Through the Years,” on iTunes, Amazon or www.cdbaby.com/cd/kimdriggs.
Info: www.abandonedinsearchofrainbows.com.
