Another Post about the South

First, an apology. My last post was hurried and choppy and contained no real information other than what I did (sort of) for the weekend. So this is an attempt to make up for my lack of propriety with my last post. If I don't have the time to write something well, I shouldn't write it at all.

I never guessed that leaving the South would make me appreciate it. I expected to come up here and fall so desperately in love with the pace and sparkle of the city that I would swear off the South and not think twice about it. And yes, I have fallen in love with New York and the North and all its strange customs and interesting, diverse people- so different from the familiar faces in Mississippi. And I will one day live here, perhaps after college, perhaps later, I don't know the details yet, but if I know anything at all, it is this. I could not live anywhere permanently, if it isn't below the Mason-Dixon line. It has taken leaving the South to truly fall in love with it.

Having grown up in the South- surrounded by its soothing textures, the warm cadences of its voices, the beauty of its space- I now realize I took it for granted. I assumed that everywhere you went people took the time to ask about your day, your weekend, your family. That 'good morning, how are you' wasn't just a superficial routine, but a genuine question expecting and deserving of an honest response. I thought it only natural for men to hold open doors, or young people to give up their seats to their elders, and whether this is a generational thing or a regional one who knows? But I can't believe that common courtesy is something that can fade. The South is filled with tradition and a slower pace of living- in the past we have been cut off from the rest of America due to our history, culture, and geography- and this has left most Southerners with a sense of place. As my sister said only this morning, "To the rest the South is this mystical land, this mystery hidden within America." Our upbringing has not only left us with this sense of home and place but also with a sense of time. I have discovered that my version of time is what one would call linear. Instead of looking constantly ahead, we look back at our histories, around at the faces with us at the moment, and glance, unworried, ahead. And while our traditions have held us back and stunted our growth at times, they have also allowed most Southerners to grow with grace and a smile in a world that doesn't hold much value to such old-fashioned notions as courtesy and hospitality. One of my dear Yankee friends up here, noting the difference in he and myself commented that he doesn't think it will last. That the South has been isolated for far too long and that the pace of New York and L.A. will soon pervade its simplistic style of living and that the South too will become "modern". I disagreed fervently, countering his argument with the point that people come to New York and L.A. for the speed, the buzz, the excitement. But none of those types of people are going to go down South to "change" it. The South is the way it is because its inhabitants, from the ninth generation Mississippian to the newcomer, are living there because of its rituals and traditions and "yes ma'ams" and "no sirs". And while I love New York, and have (as I said in a previous post) been seduced by the allure of the dear, grand, ancient, and modern city and will without a doubt be back to make my mark, nothing aside from a region defined by its front porches, sweet tea, silver patterns, and "y'all" could be anything but home.

-Mandy