What I am, NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 11

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What I Am

I am from thick ankles and steady determination. Stubborn Dutchmen, prairie dirt, waving wheat fields, night sounds that carried me away. Inkwells and Our Miss Brooks, Christmas tree tinsel that hurt your fillings when you chewed it, chicken pox and neighbors’ dogs, tiny bunnies rescued from furrows, my sister’s old prom dresses in a trunk in the upstairs hall. I am cherry trees and cherries for pitting. Pitched tents and new friends, prayer and questions, spelling bees and math, Annie-I-Over and hollyhocks. Sunday rollerskating on the basketball court. Ten-cent movies and Bit-o-Honeys, ditch ’em and long summer nights. An attic never opened, a basement too frequently explored, dust of Sunday explorations down long dirt roads. Small prairie towns and flights of fancy. Pretending my real self, while trying to be from where I was. Caught in a net with scissors. Cutting my way out. Taking any road elsewhere.  A highway, a plane, a ship, an escape, a looking for, a finding, a losing, a continual origin story of my own making. Full breaths. Sinking in. Making memories. Remembering memories made for me. I am. I am becoming. What I was I still am. Self changing self and sinking back into self.

The day 11 NaPoWriMo prompt is: to write a poem of origin. Where are you from? Not just geographically, but emotionally, physically, spiritually? Maybe you are from Vikings and the sea and diet coke and angry gulls in parking lots. Maybe you are from gentle hills and angry mothers and dust disappearing down an unpaved road. And having come from there, where are you now?

 

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

14 thoughts on “What I am, NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 11”

  4. M. Oniker

    I think this is one of the best prose poems I’ve ever read. Also, I lived in Holland, MI for a while and honestly, if anyone had any doubt you are of Dutch descent, that picture of you in blue with the backpack just shuts the door on that doubt. 😀

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      Thanks, M. And the guys pictured are also Dutch. I was traveling with two young men from the Netherlands, two from Switzerland, One Aussie, three Kiwis, male and female, four Canadians (male and female) and I made #13. We all met in Portuguese Timor and banded together to try to get to Bali during the monsoons by renting a WWII troop and tank barge. We made it but after some real adventures!

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  6. Patti

    So good. I also like that little glimpse of you we catch in the mirror in the last photo, laughing and snapping the reflection..

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