Where I'm From

A mad/lib type meme from this template after reading Julie Persons' poem first.

Tag, you're it.

Where I'm From

I am from short spiral notebooks with thick green covers in a Harvard Square bookstore, from Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo and Bonne Bell watermelon lip smacker.

I am from the old brownstones of a Back Bay neighborhood where moms brought out lemonade while we all played four-square on the side walk, surrounded, innocent. The ancient gargoyles carved into our apartment buildings were deliciously alive.

I am from Avocado trees grown inside from pits, the bubbling creek.

I am from passionate debates over dinner, from fall down funny, from Jill who came from Simone who came from Georgiana.

I am from the need to say it all and the too big emotions.

From ‘To Thine Own Self Be True” and ”Give me the answer for a Mars bar”.

I am from agnostics who then found God outside of church and a southern Baptist who mellowed after years of bible ranting.

I'm from Russia, France (by way of Canada), the deep South and New York City (though mostly I’m New England), lobster on a Boston roof and sweet tea brewed every day.

I am from the typewriter that my mother got a deal on through her mother’s gallery, for her writer boyfriend, a typewriter that got her kicked out of her mother’s gallery in NYC and into a new life in Boston; the vintage La Salle car that my father gave as a tip to a valet; and the red-headed inventor who was mysteriously murdered at a stop light when his daughter, my mother, was thirteen.

I am from the black boxes on the bottom shelf in our new art room that contain many of the pictures and scraps of my mother. This year I will bring them into the light and share them with her grandkids so that they can know her.