Where I'm From

Where I'm From

Last summer I had the honor of participating in a local National Writing Project site, Fox Valley Writing Project. I have participated in countless professional staff developments, but by far, this was one of my favorites. I loved the daily time set aside for writing. Playing with words. Creating. Thinking. Exploring. Talking with colleagues.

In Writing Project, if you aren't already, you become a teacher who writes.  

We began each session writing-either by using a model to emulate, following a prompt, or simply writing what we were compelled to write about that day. One of the poems I emulated was based on "Where I’m From" by George Ella Lyon.

Initially, I wrote a poem that follows George Ella Lyon’s format and shared it with my Writing Project group and later with my friend, Sam. Using her super power of providing smart feedback, Sam encouraged me to keep revising and break out of the traditional form. Reluctantly, I followed her advice and I ended up lifting a few lines from my first draft and rewriting my poem based on some memories from when I was seven. In my mind it became a mixture of Amy Krause Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and George Ella Lyon's "Where I'm From."

Here is what I came up with:

  

"Origins of Seven" by Trina Haase

Trina, around age seven

Church Pew

Sinking into a dark, oak pew-

I sit, clutching a red United Methodist Hymnal and fanning a paper church bulletin-

Impatiently - legs crossed,

Donning a stiff, scratchy dress and ill-fitting ribbed tights

And swinging snug, scuffed black Mary Janes back and forth.

No Sunday morning absence permitted without high fever or vomit - no exceptions.

Mom reminds me, with strict, stern eyeball warnings, that I am a child

Of the Reverend-

The one in the thick, black velvet robe with an embroidered white stole

Preaching from the pulpit.

Greet. Stand. “Peace be with you!” Choral reading. Pray. Stand. Sit. Stand. Sit. Pray. Stand.

Soon coffee hour will follow with juice and powdered donut holes.

“Mind your manners! Say hello! To ALL of the ladies.”

Following with Sunday School lessons of loaves and fishes, disciples,

And the rock moved from the tomb.

“It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Dinner   

Grace before every meal -

Holding hands, eyes closed.

Napkins rest on your lap,

Forks to the left, knife and spoon to the right, and

Back straight to the chair - feet forward.

What will it be tonight? Carp or Bluegill Lake Michigan fish?

Venison, pheasant, liver and onions, squash, or brussel sprouts?

My gagging reflexes find no reprieve.

“Be sure to take your no thank you helping, please”

My naughty antics of food squished underneath the side of my dinner plate,

Sneaking bits to our golden dog, concealing my unwanted bites in paper napkins,

And spitting acorn squash into my milk-filled beige Tupperware cup.

“Missy, you will sit at the table until that plate is clean.

I can wait” -

And she did. Every time.

Children do not leave the table until excused.

Green Lake

Two sticky August weeks we live in a cottage of salmon colored siding

With a creaky, white metal door-

Hydrangeas and hostas hovering around the edges and   

Wispy, willow tree branches reaching into Big Green Lake.

Picking rocks for pennies,

Filling yellow plastic buckets of snails,

Spending lazy days floating on inner tubes,

And spitting black watermelon seeds from the edge of the dock.

My fair sunburned skin sore and tight,

Smothered in gel from Mom’s aloe plant.

Wet swimsuits and towels

Drape over the peeling white criss-cross wooden fence.

Just before dinner Dad and Grandpa Ben carefully record

The day’s measurements of walleye on wall calendar and

Share deer stand stories of last November.

As the sun retires into the lake,

We compete in rounds of Mille Bornes, Yahtzee, and Five-card cribbage,  

Munch on stovetop popcorn,

And sip foamy root beer floats.  

Oak Street

Peering from the smudged backyard patio sliding glass doors,

Sun tea brews in a clear two gallon glass jar,

Yellow plastic Slip ‘n Slide positioned for play, and

Tall, backyard trees ready to welcome dangling, gangly limbs.

A garden hose awaits to clean wet grass

From the bottoms of tough summer bare feet.

Neighborhood children gather for Hide and Seek,

Freeze Tag or Dodgeball.  

“Red rover, red rover, send Trina right over!”

Tetherball marks,

Blistered Monkey Bar palms and

Perpetually skinned, gravel-pressed knees-

Leftover playground gifts.

Slam

Blueberry colored nail-

Throbbing, pulsing

A recent product of an accidental

Thumbslamming in the heavy

Chevy station wagon door.

My incessant wailing

And at least three days protesting pain.

Dad (donning safety goggles sans wire glasses), inserts the smallest drill bit

Tests it-

The whirring sound invades the silence.

“No! Please let it fall off!”

My hand and body held flat by Mom-

Me on her lap, one arm criss crosses against my body-

Her body, a tight seatbelt.

“Squeeze your hand as tight as it hurts-then I’ll know how bad it is”

My hand clenches a snake grip around her hand-

The anticipation of the drill.

Mom’s kisses blanket my forehead.

“Relax.”

My eyelids smash together - forehead furrowed with creases, and

I can feel the churning drill bit.

Pressure escapes.

Blood trickles.

My nail slides off.

To Do Lists

“It’s a beautiful morning! Don’t waste it in bed!”

Our early morning Saturday wake-up call

Before Mom heads out to work at her part-time library job.

My brother and sister and I trudge down the stairs and

Find our to-do list-

Scotch taped to the speckled formica kitchen table:

“Darling children,

• Clean bathroom sinks,
• Scrub kitchen linoleum,
• Clean toilets
• Fold laundry - it’s drying on the line
• Vacuum bedroom carpets
• Straighten book shelves
• Put toys away
• Polish silver baby cups and
• Dust in the living room

Big sister is in charge.

Love, Mom”

Sighs and eye rolls follow with squabbles

Of who will clean toilets.

Saturday cartoons and couch cushion forts

Will have to wait.

Mom returns later that afternoon-

Toting new library books.

Later in the afternoon we shuck silky corn husks over brown paper grocery bags,

Sitting on the wooden picnic table on the back patio.

“Someday you’ll thank me for teaching you how to keep a home.”  

*****

I plan to introduce George Ella Lyon's poem and my mashup of "Where I'm From" and Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life to my high school students early in the school year, provide them time to think and write, and grant them with the opportunity to share it with their peers. I believe that deeply thinking about where you are from and what has influenced who you are is a worthy activity in itself, but I also hope that this can be one way to infuse writing and building community within my classroom.