The Cracked Red Earth

Grace Bradley

On a January day, a breeze came along so familiar, and suddenly my feet were scraped by gravel,
my boots off, and the bones in my chest ached. A wind that has never belonged to me, but
whispers to me anyways. I felt it on my scars first, then my lips, and then in my hair. I stood
there with my eyes closed, my breath held, as the gust passed through the lavender-colored
wounds under my shirt. I swallow and open my eyes. The wind passes, the air stills, and for the
first time, my scars didn’t ache, they took a breath.
To be drained is a feeling like no other. I’d tell you first that it hurts, but then tell you what hurt
was the tugging, the movement of plastic tubes inside of you. In a bath run by your mother,
scrubbed with soap that smells of being five years old again, you take your fingers and run them
along reopened skin and feel the foreign snakes inside of you, filtering out the red sludge that
should never be seen on the outside. You’ll question who Jackson Pratt is, and why he’s suddenly
attached to you by paper tape. The bath drains simultaneously with your body, and you crawl
back in bed... you think of the wind.
When I was five, I stood barefoot on the gravel in front of my Grandma’s rural New Mexican
home. My boots were off, the thick white brace strapped to my chest, my bones being forced to
move when they didn’t yet know how. The beds of my feet were being scraped by the pebbles
that made up the pale, dusty dirt in this place. I knew then this moment might be one I’d return to
so I breathed in a sharp breath and the brace might’ve constricted it but that wind still filled my
lungs. I ran.
The first surgery was like an initiation. I can still taste the stale, cold air and I can still feel the
cold metal under my soft skin. He told me to count down from fifteen, my age at the time, and as
I did the cracks of the earth moved with the fall of my chest, I looked to see where the dry breeze
and smell of red dirt were coming from but there were no windows in the operating room... the
universe went dark.
Five years and four surgeries later, I lay on the stripped bed in my childhood room, the heat of
July slipping me into a light, velvety psychosis. This is a rotting I know well. The sultry smell of
dried blood and sweat once more fills my nose, and I recall the many past moments I was
enveloped in this warm crimson haze. I close my eyes and I think of the red dirt, the dry wind,
the “for sale” sign in front of my Grandma’s house in New Mexico... I think of the coming
months... the sea air, the books I’ll read, the roommates I’ll come to know... the past and present
converging, and here I was, sitting in the crater between the two, bleeding and bruised...half
asleep.

After my scars took a breath on that January day... they closed up and the nerves fired blanks
once again, a reality I’ve come to live alongside. I kept walking... peeking at the campus I
dreamed of not long ago. My ID swiped, and I walked into the triple room I now share. I found
myself alone and I opened the window, willing the air to try its magic once more. I lead my hand
to these scars and I look in the mirror, purple and iridescent they shine and I calm. I dig my toes
into the red dirt, and the ocean sends a breeze; this union of dusty, cracked earth and a crushing,
deep blue world of water intensify and build off each other inside my chest. My heart slows, the
earth and I breathe, and my scars begin to fade.

Synopsis:

My piece, entitled “The Cracked Red Earth” is a piece of creative writing that explores
the complexities of my struggle with a birth defect that caused half of my body to stop
developing at a young age. Despite this, I am fortunate enough to lead a life without any major
hindrances. However, there have been many attempts to “fix” certain aspects of my body, and
mold it to look as stereotypical as possible, as we do in a society so obsessed with image.
Wearing body braces as a young child and undergoing multiple surgeries as a teenager to change
what couldn’t be changed was my hidden reality. Finally, I had enough and this past summer,
underwent surgery that would take away a lot of the unevenness of my body, specifically in my
chest region, which has left me with deep scarring. Despite the doctors, the surgeries, and the
constant intervention, this battle is just as psychological as it is physical. It has taken a lifetime of
building resilience to tap into the peace I feel about it now, as I’ve come to realize that owning
my hardships and creating meaningful art out of my experiences has been the most healing
practice. As is the truth for most, when reflecting on our situations, they tend to amalgam into
one overarching experience. For much of my life, I have traveled to New Mexico for weeks at a
time to stay with my wonderful grandmother. During my time spent there, I remember looking
up at the towering red mesas and down at the textured ground and thinking, my body is just like
this, beautiful, cracked, layered, and life-giving despite it all. In all moments of uncertainty and
fear, I find myself coming back to this image of the earth, in all its flawed intricacies; I imagine
myself breathing with it, and a calm overcomes me. Now, here in San Diego, I find myself with
the ocean, the absolute opposite of the dry dusty desert, but in that, a new type of earth to

discover and breathe with. As I weave timelines throughout my life, such as the euphoric
experiences of being in New Mexico as a child, recalling the operating room, and this new
chapter at UCSD, I attempt to sew them together with my prose. The piece is ambiguous, from
the heart, and tells a raw, real story of healing and the resilience it requires.