Where I'm From

This post is inspired by Bigger Picture Blogs.



I am from a low land garden, from a cottonwood tree swing and clothespin dolls.

I am from an east facing room with pink walls overlooking a raspberry farm.

From a home made bright by sunrise, from peony, lilac, sweet allysum and Great Lakes.

I am from LaRocks and Carters, Bernadette and Emma, poor and generous, disabled by injury and disease, faithful and strict.


From you can be anything in life if you work hard enough and from respect is earned.

I am from Catholic and Protestant and a discarded Native American way.

I am from Michigan and Canada and France and England, from giant pots of home made soup and lemon merangue pie.

From the grandmother who had 15 babies and died when the youngest was two, and the great grandmother who's breastmilk was poisoned by an abscess from an unhealed injury and whose first four babies died from drinking this milk without her knowledge.


I am from the bookshelf on Brendonwood drive and from the memory of my mother who knows all the stories.  I am from my children's stories they'll tell in the future and from library books about girls in the country coming of age who find love and hardship.

Photo by Emily Holmstrom

If you'd like to share in this great writing exercise, I invite you to visit  http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm 
 and post your version inspired by the template.