By Kira Donnell
My sister, mother, and me walking barefoot along the beach in Ulsan.
My Korean mother, sister, and I walk along the beach in their coastal hometown of Ulsan, and it reminds me of summer afternoons beachcombing the shores of Lake Michigan with my American mother and sister. I am struck by the magic of this moment, all the miracles that took place that makes this walk, the three of us together, possible. After so many years walking Haeundae Beach alone in tears, wishing and wondering, today we walk abreast, three women with the same blood coursing through our hearts.
Omma tells me that when I was born, she saw my foot. That split-second glance of heel and arch and toe is all she saw before I was gone. She says when I was lost, that was the only image of me she had, and she kept it safe in her heart–five tiny toes, like precious pink pearls.
I have always thought my feet were quite silly. Too big for my body. Flat, unlike the graceful arches and chiseled metatarsals with which my American family is clad. My toes are fat and knobby, like lollipops, with nails too scuffed and scarred to keep a polish. Blisters and callouses barnacle themselves to the soles, a result of the miles upon miles I run searching for clarity. My feet are plain, brown, and homely.
But through my mother’s eyes, I now seen them for the miracles that they are. I marvel at the buoyant navicular, the stoic cuboid, the guileless vulnerability of my Achilles. I see the loveliness of the talus and calcaneus, read the chronicles foretold by my cuneiforms, and forgive myself my supination.
About the Author: Kira Donnell (birthname Park Kyung Joo) is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Her research looks at the artistic forms of expression stemming from the transnational Korean adoption experience. Kira reunited with her birthmother in 2010 and was welcomed into a family of beautiful, fierce, strong, resilient women. She documents her reunion and the continued joys and heartbreaks of building upon these new relationships on her blog at kiradonnell.com.
Dipping my toes in Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon.
