Several years ago I ran across a writing exercise called Where I’m From. By simply filling in the blanks with your own answers, you can capture the story of a person’s life with little effort or writing skill. In fact, the prose that results will make you feel like quite the wordsmith! I’ll include mine below in case you’re curious, but first, let me give you some backstory and tell you why I’m bringing the exercise to our community.

Shortly after I discovered the writing exercise, I happened to be in the back seat of my parent’s vehicle on a road trip. Without explaining exactly what I was doing, I “interviewed” them and took notes on their responses. I then took their answers and created mat boards using one of the many online sites that create such products. Our parents opened them that year at Christmas, and many tears were shed. Today those family treasures hang on their walls and continue to bless everyone who reads them.

One more story? Unknown to me, my grown kids got on board with the idea. They completed the template also and surprised my husband and I with decorative mat boards of their resulting prose. Those storyboards are unquestionably two of the most valuable things we own. (Granted, my daughter had to pester her brother for months to get Phillip to stop and answer the questions, but she’s nothing if not persistent. Thanks, Jessica!)

Now, I have that template link under our campsite in the profile so you can find it easily. My encouragement to you is simple. Consider printing it out and capturing priceless memories of your own lives, and those of any older family members who are still with you. Bonus points if you can get your grown kids to complete theirs!

I do hope you’re try this. The writing prompts have a way of nudging loose old memories that have been seemingly forgotten. The results are unique life sketches that might otherwise be lost to time.

Where I’m From by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson

I am from gumbo thick farming ground running alongside the Mississippi River, from Pixi Stix Candy Straws and wild blackberries.

I am from a matchbox house on a dirt road soothed by an attic fan with noisy, rhythmic, surround sound breeze.

I am from Grandma’s blue hydrangeas and scratchy green cotton stalks dripping with early morning dew and forming gracious canopies around your head while you chop cuckleburs at their feet.

I am from “Chase Don’t Touch the Ground” in Papa’s equipment shed and “That reminds me of a story”, from Papaw Stone preaching Jesus long and loud, from Mississippi’s Charlotte Ann the Forestry Queen and Louisiana’s James Ed carrying the boot-tough genes of mountain people transplanted to the Delta.

I am from women toting a meat and three sides to fields white unto harvest where busy men nonetheless braked for midday feasts spread across tailgates and tuckered out children napped in foot-boards, vinyl seats, and warm back dashes of moving vehicles, from “sit up pretty” and “drying it up unless you wanted something else to cry about.”

I am from the second pew left hand side, VBS, and “Deep and Wide.”

From stories of a gritty woman birthing number ten, nightgown of number nine secured ‘neath the same bed’s frame, chubby honey coated fingers occupied with a feather. I’m from this anchored boy child growing up and choosing fatherhood after blood parent tired of real world living with a young wife and stair-step girl children.

I am from black and white photos heaped in cardboard boxes, hymns sung around a well-worn piano, family stories told more times than a few, and long, tall shadows cast by one generation challenging the next to remember who we are and where we’re from.

You Can Find A Template Here: http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm