Am I From Jersey? I Might Be

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Where am I from?

Am I from the one-story house in Indiana where Gina lived next door and ate her boogers to which I dry-heaved? Were we even in kindergarten? Indiana is where my sister and I took baton-twirling lessons from a shiny blonde teenager who was our idol because of how perfectly flat and fast she could twirl. Maybe one of her parents was a helicopter.

In the living room of that house, there was talk of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War where my dad breathed it as a twenty-something in his army fatigues in charge of some other youngsters in fatigues, one of whom exploded next to him in a jeep.

Is that where I’m from, that one-story house I can only see in blurry black and white now? There’s something there regarding my grandfather and my fever and OTC medicine, but the memory is nearly gone, and I doubt it was meaningful, or was it? Who’s to know? If I’m from Indiana, I can barely recall.

I think I might be from Pennsylvania. That’s a solid guess. This was where my joie de vivre was mined. It grew there on the branches of the trees I climbed and down the rows of cornfields where I hunted my siblings in hide-and-seek. This is where I made believe I was cooking dinner like my mom, arranging twigs and ugly dirt-embedded stones on a plate that existed in my mind and which sat atop the corner of the yard where I served my little brother.

I could hear Sasquatch at night on the farm down the road — the barking dogs blew its cover. I would carve housing into neck-high snow drifts, which, if not palatial, was indeed a homey hollow space all my own.

Was Pennsylvania where I got my questioning? If I’m from anywhere, it would be the place that initiated this in me. No doubt my crib in Germany was where my endless wanting to know began, but I have not one memory of Ulm or Augsburg, so how could I be from there?

I’m not, but I’m at least from Pennsylvania where I learned from my mom how to care for children which enabled me to care for my dolls which enabled me to care for live humans later which became the marquee chapter in my little life.

There’s all this talk of New Jersey though. I might put my money on Jersey. That’s where I first kissed in a terrified coil, not knowing what to do, though I knew you were supposed to keep your lips shut.

Mr. Crowell had us sixth graders play spin the bottle in front of his sleezy self and all I knew was to squeeze tight the lips. At the point of contact with whoever-you-are, I squeezed my eyes too, but I didn’t purse the lips because to my mind that meant I approved of what was about to happen, which I didn’t. Jersey sure raised me.

New Jersey is where most of my family still resides, so in that sense, I’m from Jersey. And it’s where the beginning of real angst began in me, that worry of the soul I cultivated over the years, though thanks to lovely Virginia, the place I’ve lived the longest — three times that of Jersey — I’m learning to dissolve it.

Speaking of Virginia, this is where I raised my kids and learned how hard marriage can be, and how it’s possible to move toward acceptance and understanding of one another. I started beading here, which never took off as a hobby, and now harasses me from shelves in my bedroom — a reminder of intentions abandoned.

This is where I learned how to be on time for the first time in my life and where I discovered I have ADHD. The two go hand-in-hand, but one doesn’t preclude the other. We can learn.

It’s where the best neighbors in history reside nearby, and trees have dual meaning — beauty and fear. May the wind not topple them onto me or my loved ones, or anyone. May they remain the quintessential symbol of life on earth in my heart, despite their massive annual leaf shed.

There is California and New York City and Istanbul, and they have a piece of me and I of them. California taught me there is more than the East Coast. New York taught me every kind of person can co-exist and lack of greenery is too hard a gig for me. Istanbul taught me not everything is America out there.

Where are we from? We’ll say we’re from a spot on the map. I’m from Philly. I’m from L.A.

But we’re from a time, too. I’m from the 80s — when there was Farrah Fawcett hair and mullets, Prince and Madonna — though I liked U2.

Yet, we’re from people. I’m from a farming family. I’m from breadmaking parents. As if our origination has something to do with a style of life and the people who live it.

We’re from all these things, plus a range of luck and a collection of genes.

Why do we need to be from something? Maybe because it’s a starting point, a beginner’s manual. It helps someone to understand us and hopefully connect better.

If I say I’m from New Jersey, does that help me to understand myself better? I think so. I think it helps me to understand where I am today.

Hope you're well, friends.