Skip to main content

Where I'm From








I am from smoke   
   The ashes cover the images on the television 
I am from laughter that harmonizes with the outdoor chirps 
   With the snap of a finger it turns into screaming that resembles a piercing eruption
I am from food that appears in each angle that your head turns 
I am from ‘eat more’ and ‘you don’t eat enough’
   After devouring my third plate of food 
I am from complex spicy flavors to the mouth-watering balance of sweet and savory 

I am from road trips that require many stops 
     stopping to pick grape leaves
     and stopping to pick beet leaves
     in the middle of a field 

I am from tears of joy
     and tears of sadness 
I am from the twelve steel strings of Portuguese guitars 
     That adds a second voice to the unified vocals 
     cueing circles of dance and clapping palms 



I am surrounded by family 
     and those who are close enough to be called family 
     while multiple seas away from the people I was raised with

I am home away from home 


Comments

  1. Hi Sivan!

    This was really beautiful, I really love how food and family is the primary source of who you are and where you're from. It seems to have molded you into the person you are, and it's nice because food and family are one and the same.

    Great poem,

    Yliana Alba

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Sivan,

    Great use of images in your blog post. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, clearly food is a central part of your life. My mouth was watering just looking at the pictures of all the delicious food. I wish I could have been surrounded by so much good food growing up.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mirabelli and Sterotypes

My first job was server at a small cafe that I still work at now. I had to learn skills such as, working the register, writing down orders, and most importantly, customer service skills. Within the customer service skills , I had to learn to be patient with everybody, time management, and even though the customer is wrong - “the customer is always right.” Some of these were difficult to learn, I quickly learned I work well under pressure, but as an introvert, it took a while to get used to the fact that I will be seeing customers that day and I will have to talk to them even though I don’t want to. It was also slightly difficult to learn how to please every single customer even when they are completely rude to me or obnoxiously wrong. Eventually, I got the hang of things and although at times it gets rough, I manage it.   Mirabelli’s discussion states how service workers do have a standard of literacy and how they have to have a standard of understanding their customers ...

Acquiring Authority

Imagine you went to the doctor’s office to get medical advice about a rash that you’ve developed - sounds weird but go with it. Instead of a properly trained, educated doctor treating you, an electrical engineer comes in to take care of you. Does this sound plausible? Not at all. Of course the electrical engineer is well educated, but not in the field you were looking for, and therefore would not trust their judgement very much, because they haven’t established authority in the specified field. This is exactly what I thought of while reading Ann Johns “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice.”   Johns discusses that an individual acquires authority by expressing the language that the community shares. Therefore, in order to express the same language, you need to have at least some sort of education on the matter. I think of the ‘authority’ that Johns discusses goes hand-in-hand with trustworthiness. An individual gains respect and trustworthiness by showing ...

Six-Word Memoir

All it takes is one 'Hello'   I was born in Israel, lived there for 6 years, attended kindergarten there and lived in two houses. Moved to the Los Angeles, lived there for 2 years, attended 1 school. Moved to Las Vegas for two years, attended 2 school, and lived in 3 houses. Finally, moved to San Diego, where I am currently living in my second house and since I moved here up until the 12th grade, I attended 4 different schools. If you add that up, from ages 0-18 I lived in 8 different houses and attended 8 different schools (10 if you count higher education). I know this doesn't compare to a lot of people, but as a daughter of a chef and a teacher, who's professions do not require travel, i'd say my childhood involved a lot of moving around. As a child I did not keep in touch with my friends from my past school and so every new school I attended, I was essentially starting over in terms of making friends, learning the school system, meeting new neighbo...