I Am From Words and Horses

This post is part of the SheLovesMagazine Synchroblog: I Am From

I am from a telephone that rang in the night for my father to go deliver a baby.I am from a red 57 Chevy and the first color TV in the neighborhood.

I am from the pink-red brick house and the driveway through from the street to the alley—with mint for iced tea growing by the back door and sticky spongy St Augustine grass, yellow with sulphur to kill the chiggers. And a neighborhood filled with friends and games together till dark.

I am from a gardenia bush covered in white fragrance, a redbud tree blooming in concert with the red of the house, an ugly hackberry tree and a backyard fence all tangled with honeysuckle.

I am from books.  My father reading Great Books of the Western World or Harvard Classics late at night in the den.  My sisters and I each with our own shelves lined with oft-read and so loved books

I am from dogs and cats and mice and birds, and most of all horses.  Parents who cared not for any animals, yet allowed our pets and took us to ride our horse every Wednesday and Saturday and Sunday.  From teaching little girls to ride summer after summer.

I am from Helen and Jimmy and Betsy and Mary and Susan.  And Aunt Frances, known as Big Mama.

I am from home made church dresses every Easter—chronicled in the yearly picture.  I am from sisters who fought and later loved.  I am from wanting my own way and making everyone else pay when I didn’t get it.

I am from occasional church going, with lots of ritual.  I liked God, but I didn’t know him—until high school.  He told me He had a better way for me—and I’ve been trying to follow it ever since.

I am from “free whiskey never hurt no one” repeated often at many parties.  And dinner table conversation—“What did you learn today?” and constant correction of our grammar, for which this editor is so grateful.

I am from Texas, with deep roots and values—we helped settle the state-- and from Ireland and England and Germany. And I love tamales and chili,  good steak, lots of shrimp and black-eyed peas.  But definitely not the okra gumbo my mother made for my daddy. And yes to the peach cobbler.

I am from a great-grandfather who fought in the civil war and left us a letter record of the horrors of battle and deprivations of soldiers and the leg he lost slowly, cut by cut, in a NY prison camp.I am from words—the writing that began at 8, with stories of girls and horses, hidden away in a secret compartment in the huge desk in my room.  Words to discover, to read, to speak, to love. Still. Stories to hear and stories to tell.

I am from grace with my unbelievably loving and attentive husband and 3 children,  now my treasured friends. And the incredible blessing of grandboys—who always say, Tell us a story, Jeedoo.

Most of all I am from Jesus, who has taken all the histories and woven them into a better story than I could ever imagine writing.

What about you?  Where are you from?  Jump over to SheLoves and get the template to tell your story.

c2013 Judy Douglass