I Am

I saw this first from Kirsty at Two Lime Leaves, then Susannah at Soozadoo. The original (as best as I can track) starts here. Both women are so much more eloquent than myself but for some reason I was drawn to this one. Mine is short, more poem than story.

I am from library books and their interior worlds, craft projects and paint, from Noxema and Coppertone Cape Cod vacations, games of Monopoly and Battleship.

I am from the rough and tumble of only girl with a big sloppy Saint Bernard friend.

I am from the crabapple tree, the willow and fresh mint leaves.

I am from Sunday dinners at Grams, common sense and obligation, from Rosemary and Mildred and Kathleen.

I am from hard work, pride, ethics and silence.

From finish your peas and do your chores.

I’m from everywhere and nowhere, an Anglo-American mutt of Swede and Scot, German and English, and Irish (both kinds – the wrong ones and the right ones as explained to me by Cyril). I’m from peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches, sweet biscuits and chocolate dogs, Swedish meatballs and Shake-and-Bake chicken, homemade crabapple jelly and pizza on Fridays.

From the whirlwind courtship of my grandparents – the first date that was supposed to be with her sister to the fourth time she laid eyes on him in her wedding dress; the too many funerals – aunts, uncles, cousins gone too soon; laughing so hard that you explode in tears and the other grandfather who made everything hard.

And I am from love, mighty and flawed, priceless and treasured.