Baby up-date and I am from....

Well, those of you who really know me knew full well that the baby would be finished before the quilt-and thus ever remains the song of Dee.
The baby, little Mackenzie was born on the 17th and everyone is well and happier than anyone has a right to be. She is adorable with a really sweet face. Some babies are all wrinkly but not this one. Full weight and lots of downy hair. Lovely.

These last few days I have noticed that several people have done this lovely and moving tribute to where they are from. I saw my friend Terry's version this morning and it nearly made me weep it was so sweet. What comfort it must be to have such happy memories.

I have happy memories, as well as some that are not.

I am from
Good Fortune
Strong German women who could not hold onto the men that loved and feared them. Intelligent women who lived lives unfullfilled and became angry and bitter old women.
I am from desire. To leave behind such a legacy and find life anew in another country. Youthful desire, frenzied teenage women who thought little of the consequences of indiscretions or the distruction of the lives they walked over getting here.
I am from strong middle American roots. Native roots and Scottish Woodruff roots. I suspect the women were strong and died young, giving over their essence to weak men with no tolerance for liquor. I am from those men who grew tobacco and filled barns with the leaves to dry in the Kentucky heat while they sipped that whiskey.
I am from seamstresses and cooks and artists. All talents not nourished nor really appreciated until it was too late.

I am from a mother's abandonment.
From placement with a Jewish family where I learned about the beauty and practice of faith. Reverence for God
I am from banishment to a Methodist orphanage.

I am from weak-willed drunken step-fathers who pulled me by my hair and called me wicked names.
I am from beatings and worse.
I am from forgiveness and fear of failure and numbing self-doubt.
I am from a staggering fear of death.
I want my life back and I cannot have it to do over for everything would be different and, worse than fear of death, I fear the loss of what I have come to be.
I am from learning to be a wife & mother at 36.

I am from being gobsmacked at how much a small human life can change your own perspective on everything and how much better you become for it.
I am from finding the first home I've ever known right here.
I am from loving the only man who ever loved me completely without condition.
I am from gratitude, and patience, and soft birds settling in the leaves and Beech trees and 18 ft runabouts on glassy Long Island Sound sunsets and seeing the House of the Rising Sun. I am from new roots with this Irish-German family, so much of their history right here. Farmers of cattle, tillers of land and arborists of giant trees in beautiful landscapes.
From knowing that it is more important where you land than where you take off from.

I am from, at long last, peace.