My awesome friend Ashley and I are both getting back into the teaching saddle after a lengthy hiatus this year, and she inspired me to get in on the fun of the Where I’m From poem with this post, which you should definitely read. Then you should go ahead and just subscribe to her blog while you’re there because you’ll likely feel all kinds of encouraged and inspired after reading her posts like I do.
Anyway, because Ashley asked me to write my own Where I’m From poem so she could have some examples to show her students, and also because I’m now planning to have my students write their own as well, I threw aside the jitters I’m feeling before heading off to work tomorrow and got my poem written.
Where I’m From
By Kelly West
I’m from homemade dresses and blonde French braids.
Naming calves each spring and stock tanks doubling as swimming pools.
I’m from summers made cooler by eating Pop-ice in front of a green box fan.
Blowing bubble pipes and weaving clover chains kissed by the morning dew.
I’m from being chauffeured in the back of a truck to the filling station each Saturday where I could pick out which flavor of Tootsie Pop® I wanted.
I’m from learning about Moses parting the Red Sea in Sunday school then going home to cheer with the red sea at Arrowhead.
I’m from pondering life under the stars as I drank in the country silence, punctuated by a coyote’s soulful interjection.
I’m from piling wood for the winter to receive the prize of roasted hot dogs and marshmallows – the perfect crispy brown – for lunch.
Afternoons held The Flintstones and Carmen San Diego and evenings Dr. Quinn and Walker, Texas Ranger.
TGIF meant learning about life from a teenage witch and a Boy Meeting the challenges of the World.
I’m from when snow days meant Matlock and The Price is Right.
I’m from where bike crashes left me coated with brown dirt and tiny pebbles tearing open my skin to try making their new home.
Where I’m from, I learned shoes were only necessary in cold weather and snow boots don’t make good hammers.
I’m from a time when Shania reminded me to feel like a woman and page 16 in the hymnbook said to count my blessings
One
By
One.