where I'm from

I am from yarn-tied quilts, fat yellow Twinkies and the original 7-11 Big Gulp.
I am from a brown house on a straight square street dotted with round trees like cherry lollipops, warmth turning too warm in sticky August summer afternoons with nothing to do except listen to lawnmowers and traffic drone in the distance.
I am from the Citrus reticulata and the Strelitzia reginae, from hot-house flowers grown in the front yard even though I preferred the mint that peeked up wild behind our garage.
I am from long road trips in the back of a hulking green station wagon and working hands that are never stilled, from Lynda and Boyd and Condie and Knudson.
I am from adoption stories told 'round creaking formica tables and opinions whispered in the wrong ear.
From sure-sure-sure and if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
I am from Mormons, dark-suited missionaries, threadbare pioneers trekking across the wilderness in shirtsleeves. A dark blue book of scripture that continues to change my life. A three-letter acronym that shapes me and colors the lens from which I view the world.
I'm from the Beehive state and the Golden state alike, from Irish-German immigrants and Scots-Danish settlers. Farmers and schoolteachers and accountants. From meatloaf with evaporated milk and chocolate chip cookies, perfectly baked.
From the boys who got up in the icy dawn to milk the cows and slept in a damp basement on shared beds, the girl who worked in her father's meat-processing plant while wearing a Jantzen sweater, the family who tied a whole beef roast into the oven because it shot out of its pan and across the motorhome living room while driving through the twisting roads of coastal Oregon.
I am from a honey-brown cedar chest, the mantel over the fireplace, the giant key hanging on a wall of the house on Raymond Avenue. I am from faded sepia faces staring out from photographs culled from my Grandparents' farmhouse. The faces that tell me, again and again, I am from sacrifice. Their story reminds me, above all, I am blessed. Blessed because of where I'm from.






Inspired by Clueless But Hopeful Mama, who got the template here. If you'd like to write one of your own (and oh--- I wish you would), link in the comments.