Where I'm From

I’m from East Coast deep roots

Sunday school dress-ups

And grandparents who kept a stiff upper lip.

I’m from “Keep your socks up, Kid”

And  “Learn your multiplication facts.”

I’m from good manners,

Erudite literature I couldn’t understand

And private girls’ schools

That pressed me down

And spit me out.

I am from inner city Boston

Where settlement houses

And a Polish Jew with a blue Auschwitz number tattooed on his wrist

Taught me reverence for life

And the rewards of working with children.

I’m from classrooms

Filled with hands on learning

And festive celebrations.

I’m the transplant

Who shed the ancestral voices

And found her own voice far away from home.

I’m from San Francisco flower children,

The Jefferson Airplane and man’s first steps on the moon.

I’m from Vietnam War protesters,

And a younger brother who went to war.

I’m from a run down farmhouse

Where brown rats nested in baskets of handspun yarn

And water pipes froze and coyotes howled in the cold starry nights.

I’m from sweaty shearing sheds

Where manure steamed

And slick lanolin greased my jeans,

I’m from lullabies and story times, earaches and valentines

And cotton diapers drying on the line,

I’m from bountiful organic gardens

And homemade pies from early spring ‘til late fall.

And homegrown tomatoes.

I’m from generations of strong women

And high achieving men

And a road less traveled.