Let me clarify - ever since moving back up to Buffalo or "above the Mason-Dixon line" as many people have called it, I've been waiting for an excuse to move back or at least visit the South. There are many friends and family members that offer us that opportunity, especially since my parents have decided to retire in Tennessee. Even though we can't afford to travel to visit people as often as we would like, we try to do so on a regular basis.
Knowing that we would be spending a month traversing much of Louisiana and some of Tennessee (along with all the routes between those locations) I have been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. When it was still snowing in April I wanted to leave right then and there. When it was 64 degrees one day the first week of July (somewhat of an anomaly but annoying nonetheless) I was ready to tear my hair out, leave my job, and move down south to work at Wal-Mart with the hope that at least thawing out would make my life less soul-crushing.
Items on my list I had been looking forward to: Community coffee, a slower pace of life, faster speed limits on the interstate, beignets, southern-style cooking, our friends - Hunter and Cami's - wedding, seeing friends and family, Popeye's, Sonic, warmth, sweet tea, Albert's hot sauce, New Orleans (for a myriad of reasons too numerous and ephemeral to mention here), Super Wal-marts, a list of other favorite foods that I can't even remember but can't wait to sink my teeth into (despite the inevitable weight gain), people who are actually polite (god forbid), everything fried, and a host of other things that I'm forgetting.
Items I had forgotten that I hate about the south: more obvious racism than up North, Bible-thumpers and "Jesus Krispies," the pandemic of passive aggressiveness that infuses most conversations (everyone's polite but they may stab you in the back and you'll never know it), massive traffic, the heat (I can't breathe when I walk outside due to asthma), blind-knee-jerk conservatives (I don't care if you're conservative as long as you've done your research and have well-thought-out reasoning - I hold all liberals to the same standard), Super Wal-marts, vegetables that taste like meat (though Billy says that's the only way he really likes them), everything fried, and a bunch of other things that I'm probably forgetting.
The bottom line is that I don't feel like I fit in anywhere anymore.
When I'm in Buffalo, I feel like I'm just waiting - like I'm not living there, just visiting. I don't move fast enough for life up there and I don't play the society/political games that a lot of people participate in. Though I appreciate the hippy-dippyism, I would prefer that people in Buffalo focus less on whether or not their food has been purchased from an organic, local grower and more on the fact that their city is an economic black hole. (I'm sorry but Bass Pro Shops is not a panacea. Get over it people.)
When I'm down here, specifically in Louisiana since I consider myself to be partially from Louisiana since I lived here for about 7 years, I feel like I haven't reset to the pace yet. Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like you're running a few seconds faster or slower than everyone else? It's like that but all the time here. I also tend to be a bit more direct and eschew the passive-aggressive way of conversing down here which tends to get me weird looks and causes me to walk away from most conversations feeling awkward and wondering what I could have said differently. I also have to bite my tongue. A LOT.
All in all, this has been a good vacation/trip so far but it reminds me that I still feel like a visitor wherever I go. Since we're not "settling down" anywhere until Billy finishes the PhD I suppose I'll have to get used to that. Oh well. In the meantime, I'll enjoy eating my way through Louisiana.
PS - The title of this post is courtesy of one of Billy's former professors at Ole Miss. It was his summary of every Faulkner novel ever written. I thought it was fitting.
2 comments:
What a fine, moving post, Lisa. It's got to be hard being a transregional creature, always in the interstate liminal space.
Did any rural spaces in Yankeeland appeal to you?
"Tell about the South," said Shreve McCannon. "What do they do there? How do they live there? Why do they?…Tell me one more thing. Why do you hate the South?"
"I don't hate it," Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; "I don't hate it," he said. "I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark: I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!"
William Faulkner, "Absalom, Absalom!"
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