Do you care? If so, let me explain:

I come from a warm place in the middle of nowhere.

Where I come from is not well seen by people from here.

The people from here love to visit my home and love what it offers, but here they do not see me or refuse to.

Where I come from, I was taught to love others as I love myself, and here is not so reciprocal.

Here they want my skills and knowledge, yet I feel invisible. They are not as welcoming as they say.

Where I come from, life is simple. I guess I have to pay the price to have more. I realized that more is less, and less is more.

I guess life is complicated, or more likely I complicate my existence.

I will make an effort to find myself and enjoy myself here. Some situations make it hard to love it here, but I am so in love and thankful.

My home is always there for me. Here I gained memories and life experiences that made me who I am today.

I am from here and there.

 Author: Teresa Mendoza-Casby

I am from dice and papers.
                Books and bones.
                                Coins and lights.

Mountains of dirt and wild landscapes
Broken fences and floating cotton.

 

I am from learning and teaching,
                Empty oceans and waves that grow from the ground.
From missing busses that live at home.

 

I am from practice makes better,
That life is too short to not be kind.

Tagging along to the school with Dad

Classrooms, science, exercise ball

Drawing at the countertop

Pictures, artwork, everywhere

Toy dinosaurs, horses, whales, cats, and bugs

Tree in the backyard, long walks with the dog

Brothers 1, 2, 3, and 4 playing Nintendo 64

Abandoned projects, messy garage

Always running, cross-country and track

Trampoline in the back

Sagebrush, tumble weeds, sticker plants

Three rivers that flow by fast

The cool rain and the lush garden 

The cows in the pasture  

I am from the bricks and carved woods 

From the oak trees around the pond 

The accordion playing polkas 

To all of us dancing 

 

I am from Josef and Melitta 

From fruit trees and fresh eggs 

From father’s toolmaking where the ships are built 

The machinery I too can use 

I am from learning the catechism 

And the holocaust 

From getting lost in books under the staircase 

From expectations of good grades and strong rules 

From long phone calls and long car rides 

 

I am from brothers who teased and protected 

From rock and pop and country and soul, 

From being underestimated  

Yet told to follow my dreams 

I am from home sewn clothes  

Hanging on the clothesline 

Drinking an inch of fresh cream off the milk 

 

I am from Lass dass sein! and Cool, Man! 

To Dirndls and cut off jeans 

I come from scars left falling off of my horse 

In the green pasture where the four leaf clovers were 

I am from the church pews and the chinchilla club 

From the shoemaker who couldn’t leave his land.  

I am from the accountant, the wool factory, 

The grandparents I never got to meet in person. 

 

I am from pictures and featherbeds, 

The hay loft where Dad would find us 

From the roads delivering newspapers on my bicycle 

From the roadside stand with fresh fruit, otherwise the bus stop. 

I am from tradition, from Emilie and Margarete, 

From sisters with four different patterns 

The colors blending into one design,  

The fifth sister lying under the granite stone

I am from dreams of the ones who came to America. 

The Sonoran sunset and siblings’ skins

Oregano and parsley, spices in the sauce

From the house where friends come over

The family with the menagerie

Bonds that bind not by blood nor by birth

We share the hearth, we share the earth

I am from the Mothership

Nurtured as the Baby, youngest of six

Her legs the playpen, her hands the panacea

From the lullabies and holiday decorations

From teachings, the nuggets of truth

Live the life you want to look back on

Take a relax, pay them no mind

From love forever given, never too troubled

Always time for me after working a double

I am from music

The closest thing to magic

Catharsis overcoming cacophony, restoration through rhythm

From black and white keys and a rainbow mind

From six strings, resonant alone, harmonious combined

New homes, same problems

Always working, always broke

Stark land, flat and dry with tumbleweeds

God’s country, they say

Oranges picked and eaten under the tree.

 

A fish out of water,

“Hit them back!”

Afraid of the burning sun

“Stay out of the pool!”

Afraid of my family

“You’re just like your mother!”

 

I come from inside, where I’m safe from Out There,

Accompanying Nancy Drew as she solved a mystery

Joining the hobbits as they saved Middle Earth

 

I come from my bedroom, the waiting room for my own life,

Wishing I could grow up sooner as their arguing fractured my sleep.

 

I come from Dr. Demento, heavy metal, swing music and opera

I come from the homesickness of staring at the stars on a summer night

I come from a bad laugh and a good cry

 

I come from W, Vogue, and Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

I come from the city, with its life and anonymity

I come from paying my dues

 

I come from wanting to belong, and learning to be glad I don’t.

I come from myself.

But they are the only ones I know

So these woods are the size

Of my imagination

 

No one’s home is like mine

But I haven’t learned that

Settings can be adjusted

So I take the dust and shadows for granted

 

No family is as strange as this one

But the context to comprehend that

Is long in the offing

So every oddity is just comforting

 

No me is as seen

As that one then is now

Because every telescope I use

Includes that lens

From “Hurting People Hurt People”

I am from the chaos and confusion caused by colonization

Harmful Federal Policies, Underserved Communities and Commodity Cheese

I am from “Water is Life” and the sound of Water Rippling & Roaring from Streams, The Columbia River and the raging Sea

I am from the original land of, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and “You’ll Be Okay”

My “PT mom” aka “Miss Purple” and Michael, I know you love me, where are you?

I am from, “One Day You Might Need It” “Side By Side” and “Take Two They’re Small”

“Do as I Say, Not as I Do” and “Because I’m the mom, and said so, that’s why!”

I am from “Amazing Grace…Once I was Lost & Now I’m Found” and Seven Drums

I am from the Blue and Wallowa Mountains, and from the Diaspora of Concrete City Streets 

Sidewalks going Up & Down as Mother Nature pushes up roots in defiance of “Progress”

Rows and rows of homes with garages packed full of forgotten ambitions and picket fences that lock people inside their own prison of regret

Manicured lawns and shattered dreams

Salmon and Huckleberries

From the Resilience and Strength of a mother whose pain could not overpower her positive nature

The absence of my father always looking for love, justice, and acceptance since being ripped from his family and sent to a foreign land called Boarding School

Opening Christmas presents purchased to atone for the prior year’s pain and the love and hope of the New Year being different

I am from where, when walking around the neighborhood the beauty of Don’s Stain Glass makes me smile 

And the Little Free Library displays my neighbors’ interest and is full of Self-Help books inspiring the promise of healing & hope

I am the answer to my ancestor’s prayers and yes, mom you are right – I am Okay