I’m from a place where on warm summer nights, when you sit on the front porch either because you can’t fall asleep or it’s the only time of the day where you get to be alone (never mind the cat(s) jumping on your lap, thankful for some night-time company), leaning against that cold stone, the breeze carries to you a smell of wet tar and wild elderberry. women the right age make juice out of those plants, for their grandchildren, hoping one of them will have the senses to learn the recipe and the process from her before it’s too late.
I’m from a place where, if it’s the right season, middle-aged men, unaware that they’re going to be grandfathers very soon, let their family stand in a wooden box and lift them up into the cherry tree with the forklift usually used for carrying big bags of walnuts.
I’m from a place where, if the proper rituals aren’t carried out the correct, cathartic way, men who meant oh so much to their sons and granddaughters will haunt their final resting place, because a dusty corner next to old rubber boots is not really what we have in mind when we think of heaven.
I’m from a place I only know from stories, fictionalized memories, photos from the 80s and 90s. a place where you get mixed up with the only other white baby. a place which was exactly the right place to be born, because in any other place in the world you would have died of your severe bout of impatience, or at least received just as severe brain or lung damage. not that I’ve never damaged my lung, and I’m still just as impatient, and in some places I’m still recognized cause I’m the only white girl.
so when I say, I’m Austrian-American, born in Japan, it just doesn’t cover it all.
this makes me cry every time i read it.