Writing My Way Home
Writing is a bridge. It connects ideas, places, and people across distances we didn’t know could be crossed. I write about adoption, identity, geology, place, and the search for belonging.
Field Notes
Trusting What I Cannot Yet See
I’m learning that writing memoir is a lot like being inside this little cave on one of Western Washington’s wild, rocky beaches. I’m in the dark, but looking into the light, toward a question. The walls block out the distractions, the nonessential, narrowing my view to what matters right now…
Fault Lines
A Christmas Card Into the Void
A great deal of time and care has gone into the writing of a Christmas card that’s likely to end up in the trash, unopened.
First I searched for holiday cards that reflect things I love about living in the Pacific Northwest. Mountains. Water. Forests. Then I spent a week or so revisiting a question I’ve been asking myself for years now: Why continue to reach out to people I know prefer my silence?
Accretion
If You Know Where to Look
I have two birth certificates. Both from the state of Arizona. One covers up parts of the earlier record, but that first one still exists. More than a half-century after those documents were created, Arizona changed the law that had prohibited adopted people from requesting their own original birth certificates. I mailed my request on the first day.
Lucia Blackwell
I’m Lucia Blackwell, a writer exploring adoption, geology, and the landscapes that shape us. Based in Seattle, I publish regular essays on Substack.