I am From

I'm taking a teaching writing with technology class this semester. Last week we wrote an "I am From" poem. Here's two links to example poems: Where I'm From and I am From. Mine morphed into I am. Here's my attempt with explanations at the end.

I am from…

        The American Dream, cookie-cutter subdivision in suburbia

I am from

        Walking to school, no seat belts, landing on the moon and slurpees

I am from

Seacliff Beach, the boardwalk, wooden roller coasters and tilt-a-whirls

I am from

Danish pioneer stock who walked across America to make the desert blossom as a rose

I am from

Grandma William’s wooden leg and Grandma Una’s bread dough, played with til it was brown

I am from

Grandma Essie who buried three husbands and three children

I am from

        A World War II vet and his third wife—all deceased in a March

I am

The spoiled baby of a blended family, the apple of a retired sailor’s eye

I am… at times

As passionate as that sailor, as analytical as my accountant mother, as tough as that bread dough, as sturdy as those pioneers, as dense as that wooden leg, as resilient as that grandmother widow, as shaky as that rollercoaster and as beautiful as the ocean.

I am … at ALL times

        ME!

I think the bread dough reference needs the most explanation. My grandmother Una Guymon was a wonderful woman who said things like "Bless her heart" and "You must be hungry" as she piled delicious food on our plate. She made about 12 loaves of homemade bread every week. She kneaded it by hand--no bread machine or mixer. She always gave us grandkids a big hunk of bread dough to play with. We would "knead" our own dough, roll it, shape it, and stretch it until it was mostly gray or brown. Then we would pop it in our mouths and eat it--yuk, I know, but we didn't know any better. There was no such thing as hand sanitizer. Her husband, Grandpa Will Guymon lost his leg when he was about 12 years old. It got caught in a wagon tire and had to be amputated. He had a wooden leg. When he was young, he farmed and taught school, using his wooden leg all the time. By the time I came along, he was in his advanced years, was in a wheelchair most of the time and only wore his leg when he went to town or to church. I never saw him walk on it. But it always fascinated me. When he wasn't wearing it, his pant leg was folded under his stump. I always wanted to look at that stump but didn't dare ask. Grandpa was much sterner than Grandma. After she died, he would come to live with us in California during the winter. He loved to watch basketball games on TV but would fall asleep during the game. I would try to change the channel to something I wanted to watch, but it never failed, he would wake up no matter how silent and sneaky I thought I was being.

I also have very fond memories of my Grandma Essie Patterson--Grandma Pat. Her first husband, my father's father, died when she was a young mother with three small children. Her second husband died when she was in her forties, and she buried her third husband in her late seventies. I could always remember how old she was because she was born in January 1900. When I was in high school, I visited her on my own. What a fun week we had together! She told me of marrying her third husband and thinking she was pregnant at age 52 when in reality she was going through the change. She told me of not knowing how her first baby (my dad) would get out of her when it was time for labor. Her mother cryptically told her "The same way it got in!" Grandma Pat told me of burying her third husband and being ready to die herself. One evening, she got her temple clothes out, said her prays and laid down to die. When she woke up the next morning, she figured the Lord wasn't ready for her so she went on living--about another 20 years. She almost made it to be announced on the Today show by Willard Scott, dying just a month short of her 98th birthday. She lived on her own until about five years before her death. What a woman! If I can only be half as resilient as she was! 

The memories writing this poem brought up were sweet and welcome. Try it sometime--where are you from?