What I Carry

Seventeen-year-old Muiriel has spent her entire life in the foster care system since she “was left newborn, nameless, cord still attached, and jonesing for meth at John Muir Medical Center in California” (2). The nurses named her after Muir, who was a highly influential naturalist. On her eighth birthday, her social worker, Joellen, gave her a book entitled The Wilderness World of John Muir. Joellen told the young Muiriel that all living things are one family. Years later, Muiriel still takes comfort from reading Muir’s work and spending time in nature.

The day after her 17th birthday, Muiriel prepares to leave her current foster home because a younger child is moving in and there is no longer room for her. She has mastered the art of efficiently packing a suitcase because she has lived in so many different places, but she still carries small items she’s taken from her many foster homes: “a stash of compulsion in a blue-and-white-striped pillowcase tied in a knot. A sieve of burden and humiliation that in each house catches new things I collect and carry with me year after year” (4). Her current foster mother will miss her because she is responsible and helps around the house.