“Go, leave your country, your people, and your father’s house for the land that I will show you.”

—Genesis 12:1

I pedal around the cul-de-sac on my bright orange Schwinn with a banana seat, my first bicycle, diligently turning the handlebars in the opposite direction whenever one of the training wheels touches down. Little by little, I develop a feel for balance, tipping less often onto the training wheels. Faster and faster I go, exuberant with a child’s mounting sense of achievement and mastery. 

Finally, the day comes when the training wheels come off and I feel bold enough to expand my territory. I pedal all the way to the main road and stop, hovering at the road’s edge, the boundary I am not supposed to cross. The sight of the gray-black strip with the yellow lines down the middle, parting trees and disappearing off into the distance in both directions, allures me. Day after day I repeat this ritual, gazing in wonder, increasingly whetting my appetite and stirring my imagination, until one day I can no longer bear the weight of my curiosity. I press down on one of the pedals, push off with my other foot, and roll across the forbidden threshold.

Pine trees rush by in a green blur, permeating the air with their sharp scent. The chilly fall breeze caresses my exposed hands and face. The steady vibration of tires rolling on asphalt extends through my body by way of pedal, handle grip, and seat. Glee and terror seize me as a car passes by. 

I am flying.

I descend a hill, pedaling furiously until the speed of the bicycle outstrips my ability to keep up. I instinctively back off the pedals, grip tightly, and tuck my head down. Suddenly, the little speedometer on the handlebars belts out a piercing whine. Startled, I look down and see that I am going the maximum speed the speedometer can register, and abruptly brake to a full stop as the road flattens out again, just barely avoiding toppling over.

Still straddling my bicycle, feet planted on the ground, I slowly catch my breath, gather my senses, and sink into the mysterious quiet of the forest that now surrounds me. I peer into the undergrowth and my mind wanders. I think of vampires. Are there any hiding in these woods? Are they watching me right now? My eyes and ears sharpen to a fine point. Then, the snap of a twig, the rustle of leaves. Are those footsteps!? Is that a head I see bobbing among the shadows!? No time to think! I am off like a shot, over the next rise and pedaling, pedaling, pedaling, keeping pace long after the initial burst of fear and adrenaline subsides. I continue to pedal with all my strength, no longer out of fear but driven by this fresh, exhilarating new discovery: I can outrun monsters. 

***

When I was separated from my mother on the day after I was born, and from all my biological relatives and all knowledge of my biological family and history, I lost bodily connection to my identity. This is to say, I could no longer locate myself in my own body. The universe that could affirm my body as me, my world, my mother, was gone, and there was no one left who even acknowledged her absence. 

From then on, as an adopted child, my body functioned as a placeholder for other people’s idea of me. I became who other people told me I was and had to sever myself from my body’s knowledge of the unbearable truth that others could not or would not see, of the annihilating loss I suffered—loss of mother, loss of family, loss of self. Rootless, with no ground beneath my feet, and no one to validate and carry my losses with me or mirror and remind me of who I was before adoption made me something unreal, or only partly real, I did the only thing I could do to save myself. 

***

I glide south along the California coastline, looking for a place to camp for the night. I spy a gap in the fence moments before I reach it and reflexively brake, hop off my bicycle, and push through to the other side in one quick, well-practiced motion. The crisp underbrush scrapes my panniers as I make my way down a loosely defined trail to a clearing wide enough to set up my tent. I prop up my bike on the kickstand and pause, giving my muscles a break from the long ride, taking a moment to savor the moist air and wisps of fog nearly concealing the ocean a mere thirty yards or so from where I stand, the relentless rhythm of its waves breaking against the shore, stiff blades of grass pricking my ankles, cypress trees whispering and contorting in the wind above. 

I unhook the bungee cords and remove the tent, inflatable camping mattress, and sleeping bag from the rear rack, and begin my evening routine. With the tent set up, I undress and take a brief sponge bath, careful to conserve water—the three liters contained in my water bottles will have to suffice for cooking, cleaning, and drinking until I can refill them tomorrow. After drying off and putting on clean clothes, I reach into my panniers and pull out a camp stove, a Ziploc bag of Triscuits, a small bottle of olive oil, a container of instant lentil soup, a carrot, half an onion, and a stick of celery, along with a bag of cutlery and other utensils, and get to work making dinner. At the modest meal’s end, I pour just enough water into the pot from which I’d also eaten to be able to clean away the residue with my finger, and drink the sullied water down, nothing wasted. Then I fire up the stove once more for a pot of tea, unroll the mattress which, when folded, also serves as a lean back chair, and relax into the deepening dusk. 

The following morning, I wake up before the sun rises over the hills behind me. I leave the tent to relieve myself and stretch my limbs in the cold, consuming fog. The cries of seagulls remind me that I am not alone in rising after this night’s sleep, not alone in breathing this air, beginning this day. I return to the tent to meditate, wrapped in my sleeping bag, before a breakfast of peanut butter on rice cakes, an apple, and the soothing warmth of Earl Grey tea. Even breaking down camp and packing my bike engenders a peculiar intimacy, a familiarity that marks my participation in the stirring of life around me. 

I push my way back through the gap in the fence from which I came, doing my best to leave no trace. I feel an anonymous kinship with the fleeting early morning traffic passing by, all of us inhabiting liminal space, in transition from one place to the next. I press my foot to the pedal, cross the threshold onto asphalt, and begin again.

***

                        Cast adrift from my origins,

              bereft of place or belonging,

wandering through fragments

     of rupture and forced forgettings,

         the winding road graciously receives me.

                               As I go,

                   birdsong sounds my wholeness,

            ephemeral clouds and unyielding stone

      silently call my name,

while the earth holds me in unending memory,

             providing nourishment and nest

                          as I slowly make my way home.