I am from Break Something: A heart, a bone, a liver
I am from bound and determined and from get the job done and from we don’t do fail
I’m from one hand easy on the wheel and one hand tapping on the outside of the car door to keep time
I am from give me a break and don’t be a chump and brook no bullying
I am from poor white trash and hayseed nobility and every penny earned. I’m from new, sweaty money: Fortunes carefully stacked in the age of transistors only to be toppled over and made into toothpicks for robber barons.
I am from “GOD! GOD BLESS AMERICA! Goodbye Italy. Goodbye Scotland and Ireland and Germany. We are taking you to America in little pieces under petticoats and in the heels of shoes, in songs and saucepots and ceremony!” I am from boys that lost their lives too soon and women who buried them. I am from toting the flag home and remembering, never forgetting, sending another on to do what needs to be done. I am from standing the gap and saluting. I am from Devil Dogs and all those American conflicts as far back as anybody can count. I am from veins that are stripes and eyes that are stars and I would not want it any other way.
I am from whiskeyed kisses and stories told by the creek bank and oh my God there can’t possibly be this much simple happy in all of the Cosmos.
I am from Red Rover, Red Rover, you can come on over but you’re gonna have to break my wrist to to take me back with you.
I am from always knowing God, even before anyone told me about Him. I am from a reverse-apostate mother and a father who unblinkingly disbelieved it. All of it. Then he changed his mind, but I didn’t care anymore. I am from the far, far opposite of not-caring.
(speaking of the far opposite of not-caring:) I am from Mike B. and Keith and Jeff and Tony and Brooks and Jeffrey and Lee and Michael and Joseph and Ron and Stefan and Maynard and Richard and Gabriel. I am not from Tommy, though I once gave him credit for that; it was an illusion.
I am from “Look it up in the dictionary, Elizabeth.” I am from sitting in a movie theater thirteen times to watch Star Wars with the man who gave geekery a good and sexy name. I am from hands on the hips, purse on the lips, ‘why-can’t-you-just’.
I am from mean collarbones and bare knuckles and nearly bleeding to death and self-dressing catastrophic wounds. I am from hospital beds that masquerade as graves and people that miraculously pull themselves out of them.
I am from Memaw putting a hot brick in a towel and nestling my feet against it, four cousins wiggling and giggling beside me underneath quilts that our mommas helped piece. The wind whips icy and howls and I am not from it nor for it nor desirous of it. I am from Memaw’s quilts themselves, gifts from loving and careful hands of women who all both spanked and doted on me when the one or the other was needed.
I am from catch-and-release lightning bugs, from the skins of cicadas.
I am from smiles, from wisecracking, from limb-tangling tacklehugs and peach juice dribbling down, down, down, into fertile and storied soil. I am from the bare toes that wiggle into that soil, and beatific faces that stretch, eyes closed and appreciative, toward the sun.
I am from Love sprouted in a borrowed car and the hallefuckinglujah chorus.