southern girl

It's funny how you grow up in a place and then, once you leave it, your memories there become faded and one dimensional. In many ways the past becomes an old photo album. Fun to look through and reflect on, but not something you think about everyday.

And now, here I am in the same part of the world I grew up in, facing all those forgotten childhood memories. Things like how greasy bacon smells and the sound of my grandmother's voice. The fact that everyone says ya'll, no matter what. That people smile, even when they're angry at the world.

Small things.

In some ways it's almost painful for me to come back down south. I left a part of me behind when I moved away, the innocent side that lived a southern life. It's not even so much that I miss that piece of me as much as I'm just missing what I had forgotten to miss. Realizing -- wait. I never did fully mourn leaving where I grew up, I never did give up my ties to the south, I never did forget the taste of Smithfield BBQ. Never, never.

Small things I forgot about.
Small things I now remember.

Sometimes it's funny to think that I'm a southern girl. No one thinks it when they see me in New York City because I don't talk with an accent or use courtly manners or smile at strangers. People are even surprised when I tell them, 'why yes, I can out-southern a southerner.' Because it's true. I can. Just people don't realize that.

But being here, back in the south, reminds me that you can't take the 'ya'lls' and 'thank you's' out of a girl. I slip right back into having an accent, easy as putting on a pair of slippers. I smile at people I don't know. Talk to strangers. Hold doors for people. Make sure my hair looks nice.

Small things I grew up with. Orderly Southern things.

Here in the south you are either in or you're out. You're either southern or you're not. When you're inside the fold, one of us, you're accepted. If you aren't, well, people are still nice but it isn't the same.

This fact is one of the things I miss most about where I grew up. I have a southern side of the family. My cousin is a Georgia peach. My aunt has an accent. My sister can make a mean pecan pie. We eat black eyed peas every New Year's for good luck, and put hot sauce on collard greens.

I'm on the inside. I'm accepted here. I have roots here. I know how to act and talk and behave.

Up north, it's not like that. People tell me my attitude is too soft. That I stick out like a sore thumb. I'm too this, not enough that. I'm rootless. The only family I have up north I've never met. It's a world full of strangers. I'm an outsider, always looking in.

Yet, despite this, I will never again live in the south. The closest thing to living here I plan on is someday owning a small cottage in the North Carolina mountains. A summer place. But otherwise, no. No south for me.

I left too much of myself behind when I moved away. There's a little ghost of me traveling the southern highways, stopping in at Waffle Houses and broken down cotton farms. It's the wanderer in me. The kid in me. I can't ever get that back, and so I'm letting her go and have the south. It hurts too much to try and take that back.

In less than 24 hours I'll be on my way again, traveling back to the great white north. Once again I'm leaving so much of myself behind, the little kid who reached out and touched me while I was here. My old innocence.