Like a typical English teacher, I listened to an NPR segment, took a sip of coffee, and got an idea for an assignment to inflict upon my students. The program hosts encouraged listeners to send their own “Where I’m From” poems – highlighting the places, people, and touchstone moments that formed their core identities.

The editors then picked their favorite lines and turned them into a compilation poem about America. Using metaphors, readers wrote about being from “cicada clicks and firefly sparks.” From “dominoes in the park” to “empanadas cooking in the street.” From “orchids and mango trees” to “la torta tres leches and ruana.”

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'We'll take the best line from each person and form our own masterpiece,' I told them. 

Some students done right in; others sighed and looked around the room.

We listened to the segment in my English 8 classes at DeLong Middle School. Students sensed what was coming next. In an effort to spark some enthusiasm for the inevitable “Now you try!” assignment, I shared my own example from growing up on the north side of Eau Claire:

I am from tree forts and snow forts and poison ivy paths ...

I am from January slam dunks off playground snow banks ...

I am from spitting watermelon seeds off the stump in the backyard, hoping ...

“We’ll take the best line from each person and form our own masterpiece,” I told them. Some students dove right in; others sighed and looked around the room.

When the Chamber of Commerce markets Eau Claire, they promote the usual amenities: the vibrant downtown, bridges, bike trails, farmers markets, and rivers. Not eighth graders. But their sense of place is – perhaps – more personalized, more rooted in the small moments of day-to-day life. 

I am from standing in front of the class, feeling them judge you every second …

I am from planks and pushups at practice …

I am from living in apartments just me and Mom/To meeting my stepdad and being happy again …

I am from car parts scattered and engine fluids spilling …

I am from placing quarters in the slot of the washing machine …

I am from Burger King on Wednesdays after school …

I am from accepting people for who they are and standing up for others …

I am from walking into the bright room where my brother was born …

I am from stock market crashes to Halloween candy stashes …

I am from crickets, putting me to sleep at night …

I am from the morning sky shining as the night bleeds into day …

At the end of the school year, this group of students – each one with their own story – sailed off, while I stood on my same shore, waving goodbye. As Dan Wilson of Semisonic sang, “It’s time to go out to the places you will be from.” Our school is now another memory, another place they are from – and these places will continue to accumulate. But, like the bike trails and rivers, maybe our schools, neighborhoods, and houses are simply the settings for the more important personal peaks and valleys that form our cores:

I am from holding my mom’s hand when she lost her hair …

I am from thunder that has no lightning …

I am from broken promises and better friends …

I am from being scared, to being myself …

Wishing I could stop time as easily as taking a photo …

One student concluded her poem with a dozen words that summarized it all:

The light may burn out

You just have to find a spark

And if that spark can form a flame, that flame can light lanterns – floating lanterns placed in rivers, visible from both ship and shore. Lanterns that not only honor spirits of the past, but shine a light on the journey forward to the places we will be from.