I am from swimming, competitive swimming
Alone but on a team. Head in the water. Chlorine in my veins.
From swimming because my mother couldn’t.
Breaking ice on the deck in winter an hour before school
And two hours after, after homework,
Because I was also an A student
Because my brother wasn’t.

I am from the salt of the ocean
Where I swam free
With waves up my nose
and crunchy salty hair when it dried
And sand everywhere else.

I am from a single white sunbeam
That pierced the hard cold glass of the big front picture window in the living room
Where I lay enveloped in warm radiant love
Lying on the waxed hard wood floor
Behind the big old overstuffed chair.

I am from Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best,
Mousketeers, Moose and Squirrel, the Twilight Zone.
The Flintstones, John Wayne, the Addams Family, All in the Family.
Laugh-In.
The Ed Sullivan Show, the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan,
A Land Called Hanalei,
The smell of napalm in the morning, and “One giant leap for mankind.”

I am from sudden loud voices.
Freezing like a rabbit.
From sudden movements and belts not used for pants,
“Everybody knows that,” and “I’m ashamed of you.”

I am from the mud of the riverbank
Where I created myself anew from what was left
And grew tall and strong like the Sierra Nevada still growing,
Held in the bony arms of my adopted parents,
Mother Maclure and Father Lyell in the Yosemite High Country
And became acquainted with my relatives up and down the 400 mile range.

I am from the tiny flame that first ignites the tinder,
The roar of the wind as it penetrates the forest only to caress me
And surprise me with its gentleness as I sway in my hammock.
I am from lightening and hail and the wildflowers they oversee.

I need to remind myself that

I am from the blood red stripes on the sides of Golden Trout
As they swim up the crisp clear stream and
Flounder in the sharp gravel beside gentle grassy banks
Laying their eggs
And moving on through the land
As if they knew how to live their life so perfectly.

Copyright Jan.17, 2014 by Karen Najarian.