This was cool!

Here's a link to a writing exercisethat I very much enjoyed. I actually worked on this and did not just spit it out rapidly like I do too many things.

From
by me

I am from old lace, from vibrating guitar strings and a hand stitched bag made in third grade.

I am from the green door framed white house, crumbling, sagging porch, the smell of clean laundry that assails me by the dryer vent in the lush back yard after a rain.

I am from the honeysuckle, wild violets, compost heap, the growing grass, dandelions (not a weed to me!) and old leaves from last fall.

I am from midnight pascha and quiet after a trip to the library, from Opal and Doris and Barbara.

I am from feasting and puns.

I am from preachin’ and theologizing and judgement and righteousness.

I am from baptized in the Rhine, prayer ropes and icons, I am from ancient oils and canted prayers.

I am from Germany and England and Cherokee, Swiss bread, coffee, diet coke and rose hip tea.

I am from memories of those Jura mountains where my toddler sister hiked as far as us older ones, holding Daddy’s hand with a magic flower in the other in a country full of pine trees and air I will never again breathe.

I am from the silent man who was funny before serving in the Pacific during world war 2 who looks so much like my brother in those old pictures that it makes my throat catch, who loved me by giving me bubble gum to chew.

I am from the dusty attic box, forgotten, unlooked, photos showing my true self in the background clutter, from a jewelry box, and a china cabinet full of teapots that speak more to me of roots than photographs ever could.