Where I'm From

I have decided that my first entry should be an introduction, but I was having a hard time deciding how best to do it. While browsing for ideas, I happened upon saint_corvid 's "Where I Come From" post, inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem. I took almost a week to fill in the blanks, but I feel as if I've finally constructed a nice window into (at least part of) who I am.

So here's where I'm from:

I am from dirty flannel shirts stained with smoke. From cast iron pans, and Chef Boyardee meat raviolis that for some reason always tasted so good but now that I’m older they just taste like aluminum.

I am from the family-built house on the lakefront with the teeter-totter swing; the backyard full of junk concealed by rarely-mowed grass where garter snakes and grasshoppers thrived; the small brick house by the steel plant whose air never feels right.

I am from the highway in between, small lakes on one side and the shore of Lake Superior on the other. I am from the path lined with forget-me-nots and bushes of sun-ripened raspberries; the shallow creek down the hill whose rocky ripples sparkle with sunlight filtered through the leaves of tall white birches.

I am from mixed blood and potluck feasts; from homemade sausage of wild meat, and the fish—pickled, smoked, or fried—that I have finally learned to love. I am from the harmonious voices singing at every routine family gathering, and the silence between murmurs, punctuated by puffs of tobacco smoke. From bodies stunted by caffeine and cigarettes, and eyes gone bad by reading in the dark or sitting too close to the television screen.

I am from Wolfgang and Olaf, from Mary and Helen. From a young man who fled his country after the great war and worked hard to build a life for his great-grandchildren; the girl who fled residential school and married a foreigner; and the indigenous child who was scooped from her home and adopted with several others by a stranger who would tell her that her parents were savages.

I am from the children’s choir kneeling with a doll in a manger, and from standing around a fire, singing in a language that I yearn to understand, to the beat of deerskin drums and turtle-shell rattles. I am from candle flames and burning sage, from holy water and cedar baths. I am from somewhere in between.

I am from somewhere green, somewhere white, an old wooden cabinet full of knick knacks, and picture albums with photographs that no longer stick to the yellowed pages; softly faded memories of a northern childhood.