My Roots

My roots extend deep into Michigan's soil. They have been burrowing since the day I was born.

My roots are taking walks with my grandmother downtown, the flowers and fountain in the middle of the park that drew me in. My roots are basketballs on the basement floor, metal bat-mobiles and tricycles.

My roots are curled up in the back of my fathers station wagon, looking at stars through telescopes. My roots are playing freeze tag and hide and seek, scavenger hunts and face painting. My roots are water gun fights, watermelon seed spitting contests.

My roots are learning to ride a bike, holding neighborhood races that spanned the distance of one block. My roots are climbing pine trees in my back yard, building forts in the ones across the street. My roots are building dams when it rained, stopping up the water with sand, smashing it all with chunks of concrete.

My roots are private school playgrounds, steel slides and monkey bars. My roots are going to the library and carrying as many books as I could home. My roots are sweat pants and sweaters.

My roots are catching crayfish in the creek at Milham park with my bare hands, scooping tadpoles with yogurt containers. My roots are picnics and feeding ducks, running through groups of geese with my arms waving.

My roots are camping at Van Buren in my grandparents old canvas tent, running up and down the dunes, diving into the waves of Lake Michigan. My roots are watching my father build a fire, collecting sticks and dead brush to feed it. My roots are burnt marsh-mellows and kerosene lamps, katy-dids and crickets.

My roots are frying ants and leaves with a magnifying glass, cutting earthworms in half to watch the two halves squirm, rolling pill-bugs between my fingers. My roots are picking blackberries and strawberries from my mothers garden, stealing mulberries from my neighbors trees. My roots are baking pies and eating rhubarb.

My roots are snow angels and snow-forts, tunnels burrowed into snowbanks. My roots are snow ball fights and snow-men. My roots are hot chocolate that was waiting on the stove for me when I came in from the cold, blankets and quilts that my grandmother made me.

My roots are raking leaves into piles, jumping out of trees into them, burying myself in them. My roots are hayrides and harvest festivals, three-legged and potato sack races. My roots are bobbing for apples, searching for candy bars with flashlights in the dark.

My roots are setting up the christmas tree, decorating it with dozens of colorful ornaments, setting up the model train track around the tree and watching it chug along. My roots are Christmas morning breakfasts, egg casseroles and slices of ham, crackers and cheese.

My roots center me, station me here. My roots are ever-growing, digging and twisting. My roots are myself, are my family, are my childhood and adulthood, my friends, my experiences. My roots will never be severed, only momentarily forgotten.