I am from...

I am from gumboots and gratitude, from farm chores and early responsibility, from cubbyhouses and boating on the irrigation channel in half a 44 gallon drum which had been the hiding place for rust and snakes before it was filled with adventure and near-drowning.

 

I am from the weatherboard with pressed tin walls where a lamb was a cupcake thief,

a hound ate spiders with his human,

a calf was resurrected with honeyed milk and brandy and its mothers gargantuan tongue

and where a so-called failure of a racehorse tamed a wildling child.

 

I am from the jewelled peppercorns we shoved into the slug gun and shot at things; 

 

I am from wisteria boughs, from their explosions of purple and white blossoms, from their alien pods I prized better than the Barbies I’d given rainbow mohawks to; from their thick canopy of cool green that I’d hide beneath and read,

And I am from the Riverina gums, tall, proud, ghostly, rooted in the riverbeds and in my heart, whose long gone limbs I remember as if they were my own.

 

I am from making do and making up and making the best of any situation;

from “Keep to the high ground” and “If it hurts when you do that, then don’t do that”;

From a Scorpio dreamer and a pragmatic Cancerian.

 

I am from 5kg tins of Baked Beans from the SPC factory in Shepparton and the mystery cans with no lables which may have contained fruit in jelly or pea and ham soup or spaghetti and meatballs – and even though food should never be a lottery, what is that that Grandma has burnt for dinner?

 

I am from the time my brother speared me in the leg Shaka Zulu style after too much TV and a disagreement in the vegetable garden,

I am from knocking out my dog and myself when I drove into a fence at full speed in the Suzuki soft-top at age eight, and from discovering a treasure trove of comics in an old shed that smelled of possum pee.

 

I am from Catholicism and the Bombers and other things I also choose now not to follow.

I am from Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, Denmark, Spain and the Gippsland Gunai Kurnai mob, who preceded them all.

 

I am from the winding Otway tree ferns, Warrnambool Norfolk pines stretching up like Christmas trees and the beautiful and fleeting Inokashira Koen cherry blossoms - perfectly pastel pink puffballs.

 

I am from things I can’t remember and things I can’t forget and some things I’m yet to discover

I am from.