My Spot on Earth By Iris Bryant How do you connect with the earth? That is a question I’ve never considered. Until I heard the word “dirt.” Would this be an opportunity to reclaim that spot on the ground? That spot that I envisioned the first time I visited the home of my biological grandmother. The spot that I wanted to ask about, but I was afraid of asking too much—of digging
A Watery Season By a.p. I’ve spent much of my life hiding my tears. From a young age—too young—I’d proudly declare to peers and adults that I was impervious to emotions. I was a “well-adjusted adoptee.” I’d heard it often enough, and the
The Ugliness Within By Anna Bryant I was my mother’s best kept secret. Unfortunately that meant that when she passed away, my origin story passed away with her. I’ll never get to hear about my beginnings from the source. What I know of my birth story is only what I’ve gleaned from my adoption file. ⺣⺣⺣ 8:00 PM CST / 9:00 PM EST, Me (27F): How’re the Cubs
Air Adoptee By Carrie Anne Tocci LISTEN TO THE AUTHOR READING: I On a seven-seater plane, the air is mine. Below, the ocean claims blood while the sun demands: my birth reimagined; a boy and girl unsevered by truth, above the
Our Second Goodbye By Kai Hill I was 12 when my family acquired the beach house, a fixer-upper with views of a bay surrounded by forested hills. The Oregon coastline is long and varied, with rolling dunes to the south and rugged ports up north. Rocky cliffs jut straight up out of the ocean and then mellow out in long sandy beaches where you can stroll along the sea. Our house was somewhere around the
Adoptee Time By Andrea Rosso Efthymiou Adoptees exist along multiple timelines. One timeline presents a tidy narrative, a seamlessly linear story of how a baby was introduced to a family, like a missing piece, to make it whole. My tidy narrative—one that so many adopted people have—is that a woman loved me so much that she wanted to give me a better life. In my story, the woman lived in Greece and was pregnant and unmarried in 1976. Giving birth to
A River and Some Lakes By Sharon Stein McNamara When I was about 12 years old, my friend Dorothy and I decided to float down the Mississippi River together on inner tubes. It was a windy day. My mom (through adoption) drove us to the boat landing, about five miles up the river. We expected the current to carry us down to our house in just an hour
Lessons In “Holding Your Breath,” and Other Things No One Needs to Teach an Adoptee By Audrey B “Holding steady,not taking in air”started when She was no longer … there.I’m certain, existing submerged can never compare to surfacing, all the ways life can be sucked out … of a room, creating center within every eye of the storm, silence of quiet wind barely moving a leaf while severing an entire tree; ultimate power of persuasion drawing breath … under a new name, place …where
My Father’s Lessons in Electrochemistry By Roberta Holland Trigger Warning: This story alludes to sexual assault. You were working in GE’s aerospace division, a computer analyst on loan to NASA, when my birthday rolled around. You didn’t normally pick out my presents, but that year, my thirteenth or fourteenth, you did. Your brown eyes shone with excitement as you handed me a jewelry set, not in a fancy box from a store, but in small