A Single Mom Off-Roads in “The Wounds That Bind Us” https://ift.tt/K39H1zC
A quick internet search for author Kelley Shinn reveals that in the wake of Hurricane Dorian, in 2019, Shinn’s prosthetic leg was taken by a wave on the beach, and the Ocracoke Observer put out a call for help on her behalf. Photos of Shinn reflect her strength of spirit and good humor — and, thankfully, her leg was later recovered. This same strength of spirit is the driving force behind her debut memoir, The Wounds That Bind Us, in which Shinn recounts her 2001 efforts to cross the globe in a Land Rover, her young daughter strapped firmly in back.
What makes Shinn’s journey especially unique is that she lost both legs when she contracted sepsis as a teen. The wounds that Shinn details in her book run deep, and readers will find a kinship with the author, even if they’d never consider crossing the Sahara with a three-year-old.
While her prosthetics may be the most obvious evidence of Shinn’s wounds, more damaging is her mother-wound. “I have two mothers,” she writes, “and although they may not have intended to, they have both left me scarred.” A headstrong adoptee who idolized Pippi Longstocking, the fiercely independent heroine of a series of children’s books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, Shinn writes of growing up with an adoptive mother who beat her. “My mother beats me without warning mostly, when I have no idea what I’ve done or how to correct it. She hits me in a quick rage, with a stick or a belt or a hand,” Shinn notes. The counterpoint to this abuse is Shinn’s deep compassion and love for her own daughter, Celie, her companion on her journey. Shinn writes often of her loving exchanges with Celie, who says, “I love you to the moon and back, Mama,” to which the author replies, “I love you the whole universe.” This sweet moment appears with frequency throughout the book, and it takes on a poignancy when the reader fully understands what Shinn suffered at the hands of her own mother.
Shinn has also been wounded in romantic relationships, and the reader sees that as she recounts her abusive first marriage and her dysfunctional relationship with J, Celie’s father. Shinn’s first husband was an opportunist, who not only hit her, but owed child support for children he’d fathered but not disclosed the paternity of upon their marriage. Although her relationship with J started strong, his self-interest trumped his investment in his family. He secretly purchased a paraglider and then took up with a paragliding instructor.
Shinn craves connection, and we see her efforts to connect throughout the memoir. Her friend Yiannis drinks himself into a stupor after the loss of his beloved wife and confides in Shinn, “[I came here] to drink myself to death…because my wife of twenty years left me for a herdsman.” While they become an informal family, Yiannis’ consistent inebriation is a wedge in their friendship.
It’s not until later in the memoir that Shinn illuminates the time in her youth when she fell ill with meningitis and ultimately lost her legs. She recounts her health crisis with a note of gratitude after visiting the bombed-out remains of the Mostar Bridge in Bosnia, and she’s thankful that it was not in war, but back in Ohio, when she was sixteen, that she lost her legs. She was in the hospital for weeks, receiving morphine for pain, and, bit by bit, both her feet and both her legs had to be amputated. A reader may wonder why we only get this backstory two-thirds of the way through the memoir, but it’s a choice that allows us to celebrate the author’s strengths before we have to confront what happened to her. Reading about the illness that led to her disability is heartbreaking, but we already know that she’s a powerful and capable person.
The Wounds That Bind Us is simultaneously empowering and disconcerting. A reader may marvel at Shinn’s courage and moxie while at the same time worriedly wonder, You decided to take your toddler on a trip around the world in a Land Rover? What? Or, You sought to retrieve your fallen camera… where? Or, You slept with him? Why? Ultimately, one comes away from this book with an appreciation for the beauty of broken things. We are, so many of us, like cracked pottery, repaired with gold. Our wounds may be terrible, but they are also precious.
The Wounds That Bind Us
By Kelley Shinn
West Virginia University Press
Published June 1, 2023
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