“Where are you from?”
Moving to a new place requires answering that question again and again. How do you answer it?
A geographical place is the first answer most of us give. If we have time, we might mention neighborhoods or notable landmarks. We might play the “do you know” game if our conversation partner knows people also from there.
But all of us are from more than just the places and addresses we’ve called home. We are from the people, the food, the events, the stories, the sayings, the songs, and all the sensory details.
I’m from oyster roasts, lightning bugs, sandy bathing suits, and gin rummy.
What about you?
a writing prompt
I first encountered the poem below as a prompt in my writing group of bereaved mothers. We’ve written to it more than once over our 20 years together. You can return to this one again and again.
Read the poem, then respond.
Where I’m From
—by George Ella Lyon I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride. I am from the dirt under the back porch. (Black, glistening, it tasted like beets.) I am from the forsythia bush the Dutch elm whose long-gone limbs I remember as if they were my own. I'm from fudge and eyeglasses, from Imogene and Alafair. I'm from the know-it-alls and the pass-it-ons, from Perk up! and Pipe down! I'm from He restoreth my soul with a cottonball lamb and ten verses I can say myself. I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch, fried corn and strong coffee. From the finger my grandfather lost to the auger, the eye my father shut to keep his sight. Under my bed was a dress box spilling old pictures, a sift of lost faces to drift beneath my dreams. I am from those moments— snapped before I budded— leaf-fall from the family tree.
