Written piece
Untethered
Shannon Wazny
Canada
About this piece
I was adopted as a child. In my middle age I took a DNA test. I am equating my DNA as the double helix ribbon that tells of my ancestry and how I came to be here in Canada. This ribbon is my lifeline, my bloodline and the timeline that brought me here.
Untethered from blood and time, my map held one pin, where I had found myself and remained.
Only one day was circled on my calendar. It exists in a snapshot, my inheritance. My parents coincided briefly, up north, like busses on a long schedule; here then gone. My life unravelled within the brief seconds of his knowledge of fledgling me; my parents and I about to trivert like a y.
My cells deciphered in these days of science. A ribbon, double helix, unfurled.
There was a field of Latvian daisies welcoming me but no mother anymore to tell me my secrets.
My mother was born while leaving Europe, dark from war. Blessed by a family strong and eager who made themselves welcome in Canada. A land they grew on and that grew on them.
We are braiding the pieces left to me. There is elasticity and do overs and trying and genetic wonders I never could’ve imagined.
That is half of me.
My Father had raised a beer in the photograph; his eyes on the door and his feet already walking.
He had kicked off the ribbon that bound me to him. I picked it up and found thistle and roses.
I followed my biological father’s ancestry back to Scotland and England and after confederation they migrated to this land full of opportunity. Then the able left for service to the commonwealth in war.
They came home to that depression in the map, long worn through generations expanding and taking root. They built, they grew, they governed but I am not welcome. No words to explain my fate.
I am Canada, Footsteps treading on tracks long worn.
The words I produce leave clues for anyone looking for me.
A place to point to on the map.