I am the ground and I am also groundless. I am both and neither. 

I was 29 years old when I learned of my own adoption. On that fateful day, my body and soul were obliterated by the meteoric information birthed of my pleading for answers within my own heart. The pleading boomeranged out into the universe and fell back to my earth with the lightning force of angry gods carrying the revelation of my own adoption. 

I still fantasize about being rooted and tethered to my old self and this earth, so I can bend in the wind and stand tall when feeling unworthy of my own true feelings. As a late discovery adoptee, I can barely reach my core to find what still has the power to ground and center me. 

Coming to terms with all that I had lost and found, I was often confused and consumed by jet-black darkness, as if sinking to the bottom of a lake. Deep waters bubbled and pooled below the earth’s surface, ready to consume the intense fractures inside my mind. I beg for mercy; it is now another form of eternal strength that I must learn to nurture. 

Before I knew who I wasn’t, my own seeking hands reflected back to me my own earth, and as I listened, my identity changed and shifted. Like a body lying cold and in wait, shrouded only in desiccated dirt of family lies and secrets, I was utterly stripped to the bone of my existence. Feeling raw, I needed only to be held while I sobbed and almost drowned in the unearthed grief in my heart. 

As I eventually crawled back to the living, covered in black and gold mud, I did not know that I had been shattered beyond recognition. I would never again truly regain my earthly footing of someone who has not been shattered. 

As I learn to walk again, barefoot in the sand, I beg of the earth to hear my cries. I love her and her star companions above, her extraordinary flowers, her clear and cold running rivers. Under our sun and moon and in their shadows, I am witness to my heart’s brilliance and intelligence.

Inside however, I will weep for ever more.

I weep for all of us who have lost our way, or lost our first mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. I weep inconsolably for the little me who remains lost in space and far away from this earth.

I am the ground and I am also groundless. I am both and neither.