Nonfiction 2024

I gazed up at the Sky. She was so close; it was almost as if I could touch her. You know, reach out and feel the different shades of blue that radiated from her sun-drenched clouds. Today she wore colors that I have never seen before, yet it seems that she does this every day, forever leaving me in a sense of awe. I never tire of her. Maybe it's because she has this graceful way of consuming my loneliness, helping me remember what it would feel like to be whole once again. Or maybe it's because of the colors that drip from her and soak me with a strange sense of safety. I am unsure. All I know is that when I look up at the Sky, I remember I am not alone, for she will always be with me.  

I looked out as far as my eyes would let me, to where her golden-tinted blues blurred with the ocean’s deep indigo waves on the horizon. I could taste the salt in the air as I brushed my hair back fighting the wind's will. I zipped up my jacket while I continued to walk cautiously toward the brink of the giant flat rock that was embedded into the cliffside. I seated myself on the ledge of the cliff, scooting as far as I could until my legs were dangling over the treacherous abyss below.  

It wasn’t necessarily the longest walk to the top of the cliff however it also wasn’t necessarily the easiest walk either. The trail had been overgrown with weeds, grass, and little purple flowers, making it accessible to only those who were truly determined to know where it led. The purple flowers completely consumed the hillside. I once tried counting them but lost track somewhere around 500. A few years back when I first found this place, I tried to pick a bouquet of them but was unpleasantly surprised when my hands were quickly stinging with cuts and splinters from their thorns. Sometimes I like to think they taught me that some things are better left alone.

This was probably my fourth time up here this month alone, yet every time I trudged through the dense path to make it to the top, I would look up to the Sky and remember why the walk was worth it. Nobody could find me here. Things just felt better up here. Safer.  

I stared down as the waves collided with the cliff’s jagged edges. Jagged. I bet people look down and blame the cliff for having those jagged edges when in reality she has simply become jagged to defend herself from the violence forcefully thrust upon her by the waves. I pitied the cliff for not having people understand her edges. But I know that in reality, everyone who has violence thrust upon them turns out jagged in the end. At least to some extent, right?

I pulled out a bottle from my bag and took a massive gulp that probably would have equated closer to a glass instead of a shot, but I didn’t care. I liked the burn as the vodka scorched my throat. I think I never minded the feeling because I was forced to taste flames at a very young age, and there is an odd comfort that can be found in familiarity, even when it's painful. And this was a burn that I could control.  

Sometimes I felt like the alcohol was my friend. Trying her best to soothe my tear-stained cheeks. Trying to make things better, even if just for a moment. Trying to help erase the memories that lived rent-free in my mind.  

I started drinking when I was 14. My friend Cal at the time had just been transferred to a new foster home and he told me, “The booze makes everything better, trust me.”  

And so, I did. I started drinking liquor as if it were some magical potion that would cure the weight in my heart.  Yet, it always seemed like I needed just one more bottle to fully outrun my past. I could inject the alcohol into my veins, let it swallow me whole, yet it was still  never enough. Despite this,, it didn’t stop me from hoping that each bottle I cracked open would somehow contain at least an ounce of relief.  

I pulled my gaze from the waves below and looked back up to the Sky. She was turning light shades of orange now, almost as if the sun had stained her. Like he’d grabbed her with his hands and forcefully burned streaks of rust into her. I’ve heard people say they feel like they can talk to God out here. Sometimes I wish I knew what they met by that, talk to God. Sure, maybe I could try to talk to the man upstairs, but he wouldn’t listen. He never listened. So all I did was sit there silently. Swinging my legs over the cliff’s edge and staring out into the vast emptiness. An emptiness that felt oddly  full.  

As I scanned the horizon I noticed the bridge off to the left. The Golden Gate’s curves were blurry in the distance, but the way the bridge curved and twisted reminded me of the hallowed arches that had once littered my church.  

In hindsight, my church was modest at best, but when I was younger, every time I stepped foot into the sanctuary I thought I knew exactly what it felt like to step foot in the Sistine Chapel. The windows lined the walls, all of them plastered with the most dazzling and intricate stained glass,depicting images of love and mercy and forgiveness. Jesus extending his hand, almost like a friend. The last supper, sharing the bread and wine with the congregation, making us one. The resurrection, reminding us of the triumph over pain and evil. I don’t think I ever realized how these images would soon be tarnished with irony.  

Light would squeeze through the windows and leave a trail of color sprinkled throughout the room. The colors dusting the air always had a mesmerizing way of lulling me into a sense of security. A false sense of security.  

I remember standing there, in my church, and being consumed by its quiet hush. The doors would creak a bit as they slowly inched open, almost like they were debating about letting you in on some ancient secret. The air was a concoction of two parts old wood and one-part dusty hymn books that probably hadn’t been touched in ages. However, the smell never failed to carry a warmth with it. It was a distinct smell that would wrap around you and crawl inside of you, causing you to forget about the mess of the outside world. Sometimes I find myself missing the good memories, but I’ve never really been sure what to do with that.

There was one room in the church that didn’t feel like the rest though. Its heartbeat thumped a different rhythm. The Fireside room. Due to its name, whenever I was brave enough to peek my head through the doorway, I always half expected to see fire and flames consuming the room. But there never were any. The room had this strange stillness that would settle into the air. The dim light would flicker and cast shadows on the wall, shadows I would constantly try to outrun. I always thought that room held secrets, secrets nobody wanted to give a voice to.

I was seven when it happened. When the Fireside room added my name to its list. When it gave me a secret that I tried to bury six feet deep into the earth. When the son of the pastor let his hands linger in places a little girl should never know. I tried to dig a grave deep enough for all the parts of me that died that day. I hid under the piano in the sanctuary for hours after it happened, secretly hoping he would never find me again. But it's been 16 years and I can still feel the burn of his touch on my skin. It’s almost like he permanently branded me with his shadow, a shadow I could never outrun.  

I remember what the Sky wore that night, the night it happened. I could see a sliver of her through a window when I was still barricaded under the piano. There was a fire on the horizon and it was scorching the Sky blood red. All I saw was red that night. The red consumed her just as it consumed me.  It was almost as if she was trying to tell me that she felt my pain, that she  too was bleeding.

I was never the same after that. Nobody is. Although I was alive, I felt like a corpse, rotting away from the inside out. I tried to live in my own world. One where I would be safe and free of harm. But anytime I caught a man’s eyes lurking I was reminded that my body wasn’t even mine. It was his. It was theirs. It belonged to anyone who let their eyes dance across my body despite my silent protests. I was fluent in silence. It was my language of choice for years. And maybe since I could never find the words to make them stop, I somehow deserved it. Deserved the looks, the comments, the memories.  

I didn’t like talking about it. Because when you talk about things, it makes them real. I also think part of me thought that if I never gave the story a voice, it would simply fade into nothing more than a vacant memory. But I was wrong, the thoughts persisted, so when I was 12 I tried to speak… tell the pastor what had happened but when I did, he didn’t listen.  

“What were you wearing?”

I was wearing a blue Cinderella dress with my church camp T-shirt tied over it.

“It probably made you stronger.”  

I was a child, I didn’t need to be strong, I needed to be safe.

“You were young, maybe you don’t remember things clearly.”

My body will always remember things clearly.

But I was just one girl singing the song of a thousand voices. A song that too often falls on deaf ears.  

I was 16 when I told my mom what happened. And the pain that engulfed her face at the sound of my words hurt even more than when my pastor discarded me to the curb. A twang of guilt sank into my stomach. I felt guilty for the pain my story caused others. I wanted to tell her I was okay. That it wasn’t a big deal. That I understood it was just a fundamental part of being a girl. But all I could do was hold her as she hugged me and said, “We were supposed to be able to trust him, trust the church. I am sorry.”

I looked back out over the ocean. The water was calming now, the violent waves subsiding. I had been out here for a few hours now, my bottle almost gone. The Sky was turning darker, almost as if she was trying to cradle me to sleep. I spotted a faint little star, barely twinkling off in the distance.  

I remember hearing once, “For a star to be born, a gaseous nebula must collapse. Sometimes there is rebirth in destruction.”

Looking up at the Sky, it felt as if she had been the one to once whisper those words to me. And honestly, I don’t think I ever really understood the meaning behind them until now,  when I was looking up to her and realizing that she had been with me through it all. God may have abandoned me at age seven, but the Sky held me through my pain. She collapsed with me, She bled with me, She crumbled with me. She helped me find my voice in my destruction. She held my hand as I found myself in the debris. I realized, now, that She would help me shed his shadow that had been chained to my heels for so long. Maybe She was here to tell me that this wasn’t my destruction, but instead a rebirth.  

I looked up at the stars and began to count them. One, two, three… In a matter of minutes, thousands filled the once-empty Sky. I laid my head down on the ground, still allowing my legs to dangle freely over the cliff, as I stared up at Her. I breathed in the cold air as I heard murmurs in my ears. It was almost as if the Sky herself was talking to me, letting me know that I had never been alone, for She was always with me.  

And for the first time in a long time, I finally felt relief.

I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 21. It was my second date with him, our first date I hadn’t been able to build up the nerve to sleep with him. But this time I was ready, or at least as ready as I could be. I met him on a dating app, he was a little older than me and he seemed nice in a kind of dorky, nonthreatening way. We met up at the beach near my house, and sat and talked next to the crashing waves. Eventually we migrated to his truck, and I suggested we go to my old high schools’ parking lot. It was a Sunday night and with all the trees around there would be plenty of cover to conceal us. I was so nervous the entire time we were in his truck that I had to calm myself down with breathing exercises. I was scared he was playing a prank on me like some of my classmates had done when they’d dare each other to ask the fat girl out and then laugh in her face before she’d even realized it was a joke. But he wasn’t, and the irony wasn’t lost on me that I was losing my virginity in a high school parking lot either. After that night, as I drove myself home both embarrassed and exhilarated, I felt as if I was now truly a woman. A man had found me attractive enough to sleep with, and he hadn’t laughed or called me disgusting, he hadn’t been repulsed by my body. He had taken my virginity, and that was all I needed from him.  

I knew from a very young age that I was never going to be beautiful or desirable to the majority of men. I was never going to walk into a room and have every man do a double take or fall at my feet the way they do in movies. I knew I wasn’t going to be approached or asked out by my peers, and I knew that the time in your adolescence when everyone around you was forming crushes, going on dates, and having their first kiss would not include me. I’ll admit this was definitely a tough pill to swallow, especially when you grew up watching all of those princess movies, the ones where the princess would fall in love with the prince  and he would  fall equally in love with her.

Being a fat woman at that point in my life meant I moved through the world  differently than others. I wore dark, baggy clothes; I never looked in the mirror, and always kept my head down. Under no circumstances was a man ever going to be interested in me, and if he did, I had my own set of reasoning to back it up: he was either joking, bored, or felt bad for me. After I lost my virginity that reasoning faded a little, the dark clothes became brighter clothes, I looked in the mirror, and I stood up straighter. I had felt desired and more than anything I wanted to be desired more. What I didn’t know at the time though was at what cost.

I went through a period when I only dated significantly older men , mid-thirties to early forties. I had never felt wanted by men of my own age, so I gravitated towards older men. When I was 22, I dated a 38-year-old man for a short  time. He had a nice car, his own apartment in a nice neighborhood in the city and he never let me pay for anything when we were together. He brought me flowers every time we saw each other, texted me every day, and he always told me how attracted he was to me  I was so thrilled that a man liked me, that he thought I was pretty, and desired me that I completely excused his lack of basic human possessions like sheets on his bed or more than two forks. I excused how he always made us go on long walks when we were together and stressed the importance of exercise even trying to get me to join a gym with him. I excused all the small comments about how “somebody like you” could never go to this event or do this thing because they were really physically involved. I brushed it all over because I thought I would never get a chance like this again; I would never find a man this “put together” and handsome to find me attractive ever again.  

It wasn’t until a trip together to Trader Joes that I finally put my foot down. It was the first time I’d spent the weekend at his place, and we wanted to do a little grocery shopping. I lived about 2 hours from him, so I wanted to get a couple snacks for the road on my way back home the next day. I bought some pretzels, a bottle of tea, and when I put a box of dark chocolate covered almonds in the cart he gave me a look. “That’s a lot of chocolate, you’re going to eat all of those? They have a lot of sugar in them you know.” I mumbled that I wasn’t going to eat them all at once and  quietly set them back on the shelf. To anybody else that comment would have been unremarkable but to me it was absolutely devastating. I felt tears burning in the corners of my eyes as we checked out and later on our way back, we stopped at a gas station where he bought a Twinkie. I should have left as soon as we got back to his apartment, but I didn’t. Instead, I slept over that night; we had dinner, watched a movie and then went to bed. I hardly spoke to him and each time he tried touch me I would say I was tired or pretended to already be asleep. In the morning, I left almost as soon as I woke up, he then walked me to my car and we hugged goodbye. I put on a fake smile and waved as I drove away. The entire 2-hour drive home I sobbed, the tears nearly blinded me.

When I got home, I put off answering the “are you ok?” text from him for a couple hours. When I eventually had the courage to respond I asked, “why did you make that hurtful comment about the almonds?” I felt ridiculous typing it out; it was so small that it  was almost a non-issue. But then all of the other little comments began to build in my mind, and I couldn’t keep from telling him each thing he’d said to upset me. He replied by telling me I needed to see a therapist and that if there were going to be subjects (my body and what I ate) that we couldn’t speak about then we shouldn’t see each other anymore. I cried all night, and for a week afterwards I was so depressed. But I wasn’t crying for him, I was crying for myself. I was crying because not only had I let a man who didn’t even have sheets on his bed make me feel less than but because I was afraid that I would never find someone who didn’t make me feel less than. I took a break after that; I couldn’t stand the anxiety of connecting with someone and then finding out that deep down they found me disgusting . I learned then how unhealthy it was for me to keep pursuing older men and how unhealthy it was for older men to pursue me. They were dating me because older men want to hold their experiences and knowledge above your head, never letting you forget that you are beneath them. He didn’t see me as a whole person, he  just saw me as something to fix.  

After this experience, I thought  that I had learned my lesson, but in truth I was only just beginning. I began to sleep with men just to sleep with them, to be desired, to feel that rush of adrenaline. I let men walk all over me. I let men pressure me into sleeping with them, I let men touch me without asking, I even let some men leave me with bruises. I let them do these things to me because every time I was with a man, regardless of if I even liked him, I felt in some way that I was like every other woman, that despite my fatness I was beautiful and powerful. Every time I was with a man I felt alive, I felt like I was part of what everyone else was experiencing. I had strayed so far from the princes in all the movies I watched as a kid. I had allowed men to disrespect me, body-shame me, insult me, and use me. In those moments, I felt on top of the world, but every time, after I left, after I went home, I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed that I had let my desire to be desired win  over my own sense of worth. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t bring myself to see what the people who actually loved and cared about me saw. I was still so lost in my own self-disgust that I let others harm me because of it.  

It wasn’t until I had my first boyfriend that I truly understood what it meant to be loved and respected in a romantic relationship. For four months, I learned how it felt to be accepted inside and out, through and through. He never made comments about my body other than that he liked it, he never pressured me in any way, and he never touched me without my permission or hurt me. He listened to me, asked me questions, took an interest in my interests. He made me feel happy and  loved. When he moved to another state with his family, I had to say goodbye not only to him but also to those feelings of love and happiness. I wrote him a letter before he left thanking him for being my boyfriend, which in hindsight makes me feel incredibly sad for the girl who thought she needed to thank someone for treating her the way she should have been treated.

A year has passed now since he left, and since then I’ve been on some bad dates and some good dates . I’ve learned more about myself, about what I like and what I don’t like. I’ve raised both my self-confidence and my standards and although I still struggle with my body and my self worth, I know for sure now that I don’t deserve to be treated by men the way I was treated in the past. I am no longer content with being invisible, I want to be seen and heard. I don’t go on dates with men to feel desired or to feel alive anymore, I go because I want to learn from another person and in turn learn more about myself. I can recognize now that I am an equal, and that I have always been an equal and my fatness doesn’t keep me from that. I know that being fat makes it harder to find someone, that most men won’t look twice at me, but I also know that my existence is not defined by men, it is not defined by my need to be desired by a man. I am my own complete person with or without. 

Step One: Eradication  

Shedding is never seen in a good light, but for women, it is an unspoken topic of community. To shed is to bleed, to feel aches and pains as the skin of our interior lining  falls apart. As a freshly seventeen-year-old, periods were exhaustingly annoying, yet a lack of a period causes more fear than almost anything else, especially at such a young age.  

It took years for me to realize that I caused the shedding that followed. Two months without a period is normal for skinny girls; “don’t worry, you’re just a bit thin” doctors say. Yet months without shedding means one of two things: a heavy period that is painful beyond belief, or something much, much worse.  

Now, being a member of the above twenty and married club, to be pregnant is a joy. Friends and family expect this momentous occasion, especially for us newlyweds. Yet, the choice is not always up to the woman. Men believe it is their right to dictate what happens within a woman's body, what happens to a woman's body.  

When the cells start to develop within our wombs, women tend to know that something is “off.” Although single at the time, I knew someone was forming within me, and sadly, I knew whose sperm helped create them. To be a parent is to be present, for most if not all steps of the process. In this case there was no true father.  

 

Step Two: Camouflage

Ultrasounds are terrifying to someone who has no insight. These are only presented to patients as a way to find out what's wrong, whether that be finding a type of cancer within our bodies or finding a growth of sorts within us. As a young woman, an ultrasound was off the table. Without the knowledge of what really happens within those doctor rooms, hiding was the only option.  

Thankfully, this economy is killing people, which meant I was working to help pay family bills. Working late was a regular occurrence, so heading to a store after my shift was easy to sneak past my mother. Most pregnancy tests come in packs of three, and of course, I took all of them. Positivity is usually seen as a great trait for people to hold, yet when medical tests come back positive, anxiety appears.  

With life already being hectic, the only probable solution in mind was to pretend those tests never happened. To pretend nothing was wrong, to pretend that night never happened.  

Of course, mental illness is inevitable when such life changing events occur. Fear coursed through my veins at the thought that I was no longer okay, I was no longer normal, I will forever be damaged by the path now being faced. These thoughts entrapped my mind, leaving only one idea left. To hurt as much as possible in hopes for this to go away.

 

Step Three: Runaway

Bypassing the doctor was not an intellectual choice. Punching my stomach for days on end was not smart either. Telling no one was stupid.  

The pain that took place following my personal attack was unavoidable. Being in class put the cherry on top of this mess of expired ice cream. No one knew, so no one could help, and I understood that. I immediately raised my hand, asked to use the restroom and ran, well, as well as I could run. Going to the bathroom right next to class is not smart, no one I knew could see me like this. So the bathroom on the other side of the school would have to do.  

Years later, doctors said my PTSD was my reason for lack of memory, yet the blood is unforgettable. My hands were coated, pants ruined, legs dripping. Blood tends to stain. For reasons that are obvious now, my plan did not work the way I thought it would. Images of blood caused nights of torment and days of feeling numb.  

A new solution formed: tell the father, maybe he could help. As a self-proclaimed coward, facing him was not an option. As a writer by heart, writing a detailed letter seemed to be the only plausible solution.  

Being the man that he is, the father tried to joke about the letter. He read it out loud in front of all of his friends, laughing at the pain I felt. That only lasted half the letter apparently because once he saw the “our baby is dead” line, he evidently stopped reading to his friends and read the rest in silence. I never found out what he was thinking, I never knew his response, yet his friends flocked me with questions as I seemed to break their leader.  

In all honesty, I never answered them, I instead chose to run.  

 

Step Four: Dependence

Multiple years passed and handling the turmoil within was harder and harder to do alone. With a mother who never believed in mental illness and never knew of the hardships I faced; college became a savior. Free therapy that never informed my mother of what I was doing helped create a safe space that, as a woman, I have never fully felt before. Diagnoses started to roll in as the story unfolded. Medications were prescribed even without full consultation, due to this case appearing severe.  

Defending myself in therapy never seemed to work considering the words most programmed upon women in these situations are “crazy”, “dramatic”, and “emotional.”Although the therapists consistently said I was none of those, my brain tried to counteract just in case of a possible attack. This meant no crying in front of people, therapist or not, this meant belittling myself and the past, as well as removing information that felt too extreme.  

This story cannot be real, this is just a story. If someone's life played out like this, they wouldn’t be as okay as I am.  

I depended on myself, and myself alone. There was no need to drag people into the tormented world of fantasy my brain created, the pain is too much. But then there were people who noticed. Boyfriends who asked why I didn’t want to have sex, family members who asked why I no longer wanted kids, friends that noticed that something was off.  

 

Step Five: Discourse

Intercourse is something men demand. As a young woman with no father, I never realized how necessary sex was to the male population. Boyfriends would get mad at me for a simple “I’m really tired right now” and eventually, I knew talking to my mother would help provide insight.  

This is where I ended up finding out that I was not alone. Almost twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. One in four women will be sexually assaulted at least once in their life, I was no different. My mother was no different.  

Her story was much tougher to live through, let alone sleep with at night. The father of my child never stabbed me, like hers did. The father of her child never raped her, like mine did. Yet when I brought up my boyfriend, and my refusal to sleep with him, my mother grabbed my hands in hers as she uttered “you are so strong.”

Communicating with my mother showed proof that women are terrified of men, with every reason to be. As a forty-five-year-old woman, she was still incapable of telling her husband no: “Well, he drinks a lot and if you tell him no when he is drunk then he just gets angry. I’d rather we have sex and he goes to sleep than for him to be angry.” Angry women are usually laughed at, told to calm down and to return to their petite position of complacency yet men are cheered for. Fighting has always been allowed, paid for even, and yet women are symbols of sex. Only cheered for if enough of their skin is showing.  

 

Step Six: Acceptance

Trusting people is hard for women. We are taught to not trust the backstabbing females in our lives, yet to trust a man is much harder. How is any woman able to feel safe in their home when a man walks within it?  

To be a woman is to trust yourself and yourself only. I accepted this declaration as truth when the people I thought I knew and loved decided to leave. We women are belittled for our high expectations yet in reality, a woman just wants to feel safe which is impossible in the world we live in.  

Years have passed since losing my baby, but the tears still fall at the topic of children. The father decided to give me a parting gift that will forever stay with me. Post traumatic stress disorder is a constant now, something that will never go away. With PTSD being a “war” based disorder, people would assume men primarily have it. Yet the statistics speak volumes only women care to hear. Women have double the number of diagnoses than men.  

As a society we have accepted war as an inevitable part of global conflict. We send men to the front lines knowing they will come back scared of a book falling on the floor. Yet women have had to accept that fear will always be around them. Men walk the streets with confidence women are incapable of holding. One look at a redhead and every sign of stability I hold crumbles.  

 

In the end, women are forced to submit.

The nature of a shadow changes depending on the angle  you’re facing it, your position  relative to it. From afar these patches of darkness on a sunny day are obscured by the beings creating them, giving a perception of depth while being eclipsed by the brilliant autumnal gradient above. Up close, these shadows become beings of their own. When I stand within one, I am enveloped, every sense at once activated and at ease within the protective shade.

My neighborhood park doesn’t look like much from the street, it sits on the edge of a cookie-cutter townhouse development, an oval concrete ring of a track encloses a swath of green, a few baby trees within, a few more elder trees without. Even so, there is beauty to be found in its simplicity. Last week’s rain showered the field with much-needed hydration, and the resulting vibrance reminds me that my spirit is fullest when surrounded by verdancy. My dog stops at a baby pine and sniffs vigorously,  I find myself wondering what has touched it, what it's like to smell through her nose.  

There is no feeling like the one of walking confidently in the sun. Tracing the path of the track I relish the ease with which I take each step, the brush of my curls as they bounce against my face. The view from my perspective is one that could never be captured on film, even if I tried for the rest of my life. “It’s so easy to feel this way,” I think, knowing it to be completely untrue. Most days it’s hard to feel this way. This is just a lucky one.

It helps that I know and look forward to what’s coming next. At the end of the track furthest from the whir of speeding cars, a trail opens into a sudden urban forest. There is a short transitional area, as the concrete path fades into dirt and the trees grow more numerous to the point of enclosure. In a seemingly selective breeze, a teenage tree waves at me with its wide leaves, beckoning me towards the fairyland.  

This is the place where smells change with each step. First it’s one of sun-dried pine needles as we leave the track. Next, the strange sweetness of rotting blackberries, left behind in their brambles, missed by the birds and the berry-pickers.Then, alluring and cozy cottonwood shifts into a sweet and tangy smell reminiscent of underripe banana. Each of these scents undergo a subtle shift as I move between patches of sun and shade; the sun intensifies, widens each smell, while the shade smooths and softens them out. I wonder if my dog is as intrigued by this as I am, or if the mélange creates a state of overwhelm within her, and all she can do is keep sniffing, keep moving forward.  

I pause the crackle of my steps on this dirt and gravel path and listen. A parent calls to their child in the yard of one of the townhouses across the pond. The rustle of leaves gently swaying in the light breeze reminds me, like always, of the rolling waves of my coastal hometown, shortened by the breakwater. In the span of three seconds, five or six different bird calls can be heard at once, and I silently chastise myself for being unable to differentiate between them, just like I am unable to name most of the trees and plants surrounding me, not even my favorites.  

I come upon the end of the trail, which culminates into a Fred Meyer parking lot. There is something simultaneously horrifying and comforting about this juxtaposition. The paradox of a paved lot, parked cars and shopping carts in the backyard of this beautiful ecology, my fairyland. When I’m in this state of wonder and awe at nature it hurts to be confronted by the realities of modern life. But next time I go grocery shopping I will think about the winding trail with the waving trees, the damp dirt kicked up by my heels and into my sneakers, the berry brambles that will recede and then return next summer, the bird calls I’d like to someday be able to identify. It could be gone someday, tomorrow, torn out, excavated for more townhouses or an addition to the shopping center or more parking spots. All I can hope is that the green outlives me.  

I have discovered on this voyage toward home fragments of time, imposing and obscure, which at first appear inexplicable. Volumes of titles, weighty riches dedicated to the plight of adoptee and birth mother, rest upon my bookshelf—like maps meant to guide this emigrant child safely toward the shore of self-knowledge. Yet, as I hunt for words to define what is occurring within my mind and body, when confronted by the vast unknown of my bloodline, I find myself grasping. I am helpless – a baby reaching for a favorite toy – only to find its little hands banging about uselessly. I perceive the sensation to be something akin to joy, loss, and terror combined; hieroglyphics on a cave wall, or the remnant of a wound so young and so primal that only God might find a way to translate it.

I was born with an anchor on my soul: a six-pound six-ounce secret carrying the burden of the entire closed adoption system. Masquerading as an arrangement to protect illicit offspring from being pinned with tiny scarlet letters, it, instead, sent me into an exile filled with longing. Stranded, I was compelled toward a homeland foreign to me, where haunting questions of who I was grew entangled deep beneath shifting sands of generations past.  

As far as the eye could see, I acquiesced to the station assigned to me. Allowing myself to love and be loved, I formed a fragile bond, heavy in unspoken words, with my parents whom I had single-handedly redeemed from untold sorrows of infertility. It was a duty that at times felt confining and too cumbersome for such a tiny soul to bear.  

Weary of the obligatory facade of contentment, I invited Unveiled Reality to retreat with me into a sacred, inner world. Fast companions, we took our first toddling steps toward Truth.     

Together, we mourned my lost history and constructed, within my soul, faceless altars where I felt at home discreetly cherishing birth family: intimate strangers just beyond my reach.  

Thirty years later, I speed toward them. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, I take in surrounding drivers on I-5 South. Headed toward what? I wonder, as I glide into the next lane. Peace and unease usher me out of an archaic world I have felt, for some time, destined to leave behind. I steal a quick glimpse of myself – fragmented portions of my countenance become visible in what now strikes me as a ridiculously limited view, allotted for the monumental task of avoiding high-speed mayhem. Greedily, my mind grabs onto physical traits as if seeing them for the first time. I take in the long, dark hair of a little brother and my eldest brother's lip line and dark, arched brows. They are strangers to me, yet these small pieces of myself – once cast aside – are now beloved as I see them mirrored in members of my lost heritage.

I catch the eyes of an old soul reflecting back at myself. It was a title bestowed upon me at too delicate an age, just sixteen, by a nameless older gentleman. Drifting back, I ponder how his words startled me, then resonated within – how I yieldingly knelt down – allowing them to be placed atop my innocent head, like a perfectly fitted crown. They are blue like my father’s – a pirate of a man, I’m told – who recklessly joined in piecing me together amid a singular, August ‘68 night of free love. Ironically, it had little to do with love and in the end was anything but free. His conquest left in its wake the most substantial of debts: one tiny, blue-eyed creditor wailing for answers. It does not escape me that his are the eyes that sparkle back at me – full of dare and abandon – and I smile.

Picking up my pace, evergreens blur into the periphery and my thoughts wander to my eldest brother. Found by this foundling, after kissing a test tube in hope of unearthing my elusive ethnicity, he was my very first brush with family of origin, thanks to Ancestry DNA. Although lost to me by an ocean of miles, he has given of himself freely, making my shy introduction to our father posthumously through his own intimate memories and photo collection. I have been lavished with time. Moments like golden coins, precious and once lost, have been invested – creating a rich bond.  

I have found him to be beautiful, and familiar, and comforting.  

This brother is the family member my heart had set itself upon meeting first, yet he is the reason my car sails onward toward its destination: Capitol Theater, Olympia. Today, the legacy of a family business, founded by our great grandfather, will be honored by the community it served for over 100 years. His simple mention of the event set me unthinkingly on course. I am drawn along by a single, tenuous line of curiosity.

The car stereo, thumping in unison with my heart, thrusts me back in time, as I turn onto the same quaint downtown streets that my ancestors walked on. In my mind's eye, as I slip into a parking space, I spot the gentle-eyed grandpa who graced my firstborn with her distinct, little bow lips. Alongside him stands his untamed son, my father, whose uncivilized auburn beard my own wild child wears. Lifting myself out of the car, I offer each an arm and turn to face the vintage, neon theater sign. In an attempt to shake nagging uncertainty, I remind myself to stand tall and move with deep, confident strides on my grandfather’s long legs.

I scan the dimly lit theater for faces of people known only to me through dated photos and elusive social media. A grin plays at the corner of my mouth as I take in the absurdity of my situation —I wouldn’t recognize my own flesh and blood if they were sitting beside me.

Relaxing into the melodic ramblings of elderly speakers, I am transported by a slideshow of hazy, black and white images, to an age of dapper young men sporting straw boater hats and neckties. They pose alongside women, captivating, with scarlet-stained pouts and high heels.  

Lost in melancholy for an era gone by, my gaze is summoned to the left by a vaguely familiar form. Curiosity piqued, I notice the posture of a man just one row in front of me. His frame, lanky like mine, reclines into the curve of a seat forged by countless bodies of generations past. Shoulders leaning slightly forward, elbows bent on worn armrests, his hands are propped up and held close to his heart, as if in prayer. His index fingers extend skyward and absentmindedly touch the tip of his chin – as do mine.  

I am plunged into past conversations with my brother; enveloped again by the innocent wonder of the first long-distance moments we felt our genes tell on us, as they pointed to small, shared mannerisms. I reemerge to find that we are sitting in identical positions, this man and I. With my father’s blue eyes, now wide, I cautiously explore the room, taking in a theater full of patrons; some, with hands folded neatly in laps or slumped over a crossed leg; others, with fingers balled into fists and pressed heavily into one jaw or the other. Only two point the room toward heaven.  

Fascinated, I turn back slowly, allowing my gaze to stop and rest again on this stranger. Glancing over his shoulder he holds my eyes curiously, as if trying to place me. My mind sifts through its recesses—tentatively offering one, lone image. Unexpected relief washes over me as I find I do recognize my own flesh.

This is my uncle, the pirate of a man's brother.

As the event concludes, I wait patiently, savoring the last few moments of a self I see contentedly drifting away, along with exiting theater guests. I sense an internal tide shift and am swept toward the mystery of my own blood. At the altar of this intimate stranger, I hear the question shackled to me during my very first breath, slip out into the world at last,

Do you know who I am? 

Words, like drops of rain falling into a remote lake before dawn, baptize us into the narrative of our lives. Powerful, haunting, and often taken for granted, they go largely unnoticed as they steadfastly add depth to the history of who we are.  

In the beginning I was four days old, a child with no genesis.  

Adoption documents – strands of letters substantial enough to catapult an entire human being from one world to the next – are carefully crafted and eagerly signed in exchange for the most precious of currencies: my birth certificate, the manuscript of my origin.

I am begot of mystery.

A 1960’s era resourceful enough to land a man on the moon, had become severed from the most primal of truths: a newborn knows its mother. Knit together within the soul of a flower child, we were two imprisoned as one. The cadence of her voice and rhythm of her heart had become my lullaby; she would be fiercely missed. At times, Unacknowledged Grief enveloped me and we slipped, without a ripple, into a quiet state of wonder just below the surface.

I had been reared by questions that would foster, within myself, an innate thirst for knowledge. How I longed for words with which to savor my mother! Hungrily, as an infant to the breast, I turned toward written word. I found her waiting between its covers. Holding her in my hands, at last, I could see her halo of the misfortune as the heroine of The Scarlet Letter. I felt her determination in Willa Cather’s My Antonia. Through the voice of Anais Nin, I could hear her whisper verses of strength and resilience.

Countless pages have I wandered in an attempt to define this most profound and missing portion of myself. There have been moments of sublime clarity. Words, thrust like water through a dusty old sprinkler, shoot hypnotizing arcs of thought to paradise. Smiling, I tilt my face toward heaven in expectation and they spill down, cleansing me of sorrow, washed by the water of the word. Other moments have exhumed only fragmented bits of understanding that piece together ancient feelings of fear, unease, and an aching sense that something has been missing for an eternity. There is weighty desire, steady heartache, and the faintest heartbeat...heartbeat...heartbeat.

Her name is Loss.

I am told that as an inconsolable newborn I wailed for her. Always willing to accommodate, she came swiftly.  As I toddled in sparkling rivers my loyal companion splashed contentedly alongside me. In faded photographs I see Loss reflected in eyes that quietly question, as I open my birthday presents at 3, 4, 5.  Alone, with stage fright I was reassured by her presence at school plays and sitting at my worn school desk she daydreamed along with me while I gazed, entranced, in the direction of a snow-capped mountain. Loss walked me down the aisle at my simple wedding and coached me soothingly, as my body danced to the fiery rhythm of childbirth. Cradling my own DNA for the very first time, together, we were absorbed in her, Loss and I. Breathing in her intoxicating scent and counting each tiny finger and toe, we were mesmerized; she was every pure word on the tip of God’s tongue. It was here, in this dim hospital room that I first began to travel the delicate countenance of my own daughter, desperate for a glimpse of a flower child lost to me. In the following moments a simple prayer, fragile and sacred, arose within, and was exhaled into the ethereal.  

I now understood the sacrifice that had branded my mother as Loss.

Years, crowded with joy, followed, as one bundle of DNA became two. Much to my dismay, my little ones grew and began to piece together sentences of their own. What is my health history? Where do I get my curls? Who am I?  I watched helplessly as Loss was transformed and, like a mantle, placed upon the shoulders of my unsuspecting children.  

On a renewed quest for answers, I found myself in a more perceptive era, one enlightened and acutely aware of the cost of stolen beginnings. In the decades since my birth, a battle for identity had been waged and won. Once as buried as the Book of Kells, adoptee birth certificates had been unearthed and unsealed. The ransom to free my mother and I of Loss, fifteen dollars in an envelope bound for my state capital.  

The flower child was delivered into my trembling hands one rainy spring morning, wet and pure. Her name rested quietly on my long-lost manuscript of origin, as I pieced letters into the story of who I am.