Thoughts from a writing class

It was a treat for me to join with 12-15 others every Monday morning in a writing class offered at our church. We wrote for two hours--sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for 15 minutes--following a prompt offered to us by our wise and compassionate teacher. I had never done anything like this before, and found it challenging, rewarding, stretching, and exhausting! One of our prompts was: "I am from..." Think about it - and write your own! I AM FROM… I am from strong and sturdy stock. I am from grandparents who lived in the cold country up north—Minnesota and South Dakota—until finally everyone had had enough of snow and cold, and everyone on both sides of our family moved to California—all but us. I am from Oklahoma, our adopted state—but we fit right in: two OU graduates and parents who didn’t miss an OU home football game until well into their 80’s. I am from the cold and the snow, with snow tunnels to our house, snowsuits to keep warm and snowboots to keep our feet dry. But now… I am from Texas. I don’t miss the snow and cold and having to lift a snow shovel or even having to own one. I am from strong and sturdy stock – from grandparents married to each other way past their Golden wedding anniversaries, and parents who celebrated their 62nd anniversary. I am from the Black Hills of South Dakota with the great stone faces of Mt. Rushmore, an important part of my growing up days, all the way to the Red River crossing into Texas and the Rio Grande at the Texas-Mexico border. I am from the crisp cold wide open spaces of the two Dakotas through the wheatfields of Kansas and Oklahoma to the rich farmland of Central Missouri, to the oil fields of West Texas—and I call it all home.