WHERE I’M FROM
by willeya
Lately I have been thinking about the otherness of others. As a child I grew up naively thinking that everybody was the same. i never thought of food tasting different to them or color having different hues in their eyes. my childhood was very safe to me and i think its largely because of this.
i do not see the world with such simplicity anymore and it is both fascinating and terrifying. whether i get out of my pajamas or not, each day is a trip to another’s world. and yet too much travel and i long for home, the one dimension of childhood, the unaware self. this is an exercise of going home, literally and figuratively.
WHERE IM FROM:
I am from the sound of crickets and frogs in the dark, from 50 cent toothpaste and the S in the country road that made me late for curfew. Every. Time.
I am from the smell of sheets dried in the sun.
I am from cornstalks taller than me in the summer, miles of blinding white in the winter, and a sky that shrinks the earth with its expanse.
I am from peter paul and mary around the campfire and kindness, from goldie and dorothy and a woman named victoria who I am 99% like, so the dna says.
I am from the tender and the timid
the unknowable ones
From “love you annie” on the way to bed and “blessed are the flexible” and the murmuring of reading maps.
I am from the pulpit with a celtic cross my daddy stood behind. From the God from whom all blessings flow, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the longest amen.
I am from the land of eternal spring and from women called paisas. From empanadas and instant coffee with milk and sugar over saturday morning cartoons.
I am from the time my brother’s layup was on the news and my mom cried like he died. The spring days with molly rollerblading down the church driveway and making up dances to summer lovin in the basement. Drinking pop from boots, memorizing kenney chesney instead of geometry.
I am from plastic tubs in the bottom of the hutch, pictures lined with dates on the back. From the one word prayers written in my dad’s mead notebook, tucked in his front pocket with a pen. The pewter bell my mom treasured for the way it didn’t shine, whose muted ring was more beautiful to her than the sharp sound of silver. I am from the dents in my sister’s fingers after playing guitar and her daisy wedding ring.
I am from the love and gratitude that tackle hugs mom on christmas morn. And her tears that rolled into my hair.
every common bush 
still love ya, Annie dad
I just cried Willeya. And in writing the words,”I just cried”, I could no longer open my eyes or keep my laptop still. So give me a minute will you… There, much better.
So often I live in conflict with… Well, everything. But you, with these things, almost worthless in real-time, you call the anxious reader to stand up and shout, “I’m from somewhere too, dammit!” My legs stuck to the seat of ours fake-leather-clad minivan, I jammed my fingers, I broke my arm in first grade, I licked pudding tops and had a freaking bed time. You’ve provoked me to see beauty in the profound painting of your own fleeting-ness, and I most certainly have, and yet cannot handle the weight of ascribing meaning, beauty, and excellence to my own. A schlubb like men can’t possibly come from adorableness.
This is deeply beautiful. I am moved to tears at this musing…thank you for writing and please, please continue.
I simply love this and you. I love who you ‘am’.
That last one was your husband not a creeper. Hmmm. Or, better said, your creeper husband.