Where I'm From.

I am from clotheslines hung with freshly washed laundry blowing in the breeze, from half-gallons of Hood ice cream and Chevrolets.

I am from the white house on "The Hill," from the blue-and-yellow kitchen filled with sunshine and the scent of apple pie, from Sunday dinner after church and chocolate milk in the mornings and the scratchy red living room carpet and the yellow bedroom looking down over the backyard.

I am from the Mountain Laurel and the White Oak, the lilacs and the snowbells in Spring, the black-eyed Susans and the clover-studded fields of Summer, the generations-old apple trees and the fiery foliage of a New England Autumn, and the spruces and the evergreens with their Winter ermine wraps.

I am from annual road trips to Cooperstown and Christmas Eves at Aunt El's and two previous generations of Red Sox fans, from Steven and Mary and Mildred and Walter. From those who gave me life and those who taught me how to live it.

I am from the stubborn and the hard-working and the close-knit and the belief that homemade is always best.

From you'll crack your head open and come inside before the jackyls get you and if you take care of your things, they will last longer and say your prayers.

I am from the Lutheran Church. From confirmation classes and Christmas Eve Candelight services at midnight and Good Friday Tenebrae with the slamming of the Bible in a pitch-black sanctuary. From The Lord's Prayer and the twenty-third Psalm and the Apostles' Creed. From stern looks for whispering in church and sitting in the balcony with Heather M, feeling grown up.

I'm from the Old Country with roots so ambiguous they seem untraceable, from kielbasa and sauerkraut, from a country corner of the Northeast United States and a cellar full of home-canned jams, jellies, relishes and pickles.

From the Halloween when Dad made us laugh by wearing a fuzzy orange tail as he escorted us from door to door, the time Josh gave me chicken pox and he had only a few spots over a long weekend but I was covered from head to toe and missed two weeks of school, and the way we would pester Gram starting on December first until she dug the boxes full of Christmas decorations from deep in a closet.

I am from photos nearly a hundred years old now, cracked and faded and peeling, handed down to me with their shaky script on the backsides. From family stories that should have been recorded when the opportunity still existed. From comfortable traditions and a large extended family and real honest-to-God love. I am from their past and my past and memories that are priceless treasures.

I have seen this prompt circulating for years. I've always been drawn to it, but was too afraid to try one of my own, telling myself it would never measure up to those I read in the words of others. But then I realized that this is *my* story and one I cherish, one worth remembering and capturing and sharing. I think I could compose this post a thousand times, and each time it would be different. And each time it would be beautiful. It is where I am from.