one of the most frequented questions in my classrooms today is that of authenticity. take someone like Frederick Douglass (who i affectionately refer to as Freddie D.) for example. Freddie D. was born into a traditional life of a slave on a plantation in Maryland. illiterate, estranged from his immediate family, and endlessly grappling with a hope that was hard to maintain. as freddie D. rose in his prominence as the representative of the enslaved African American community attaining cultural capital was necessary for him so that northern whites would take him seriously, but his quest for literacy and his rise to prominence as the great abolitionist further separated him from the community he set out to represent. So, if Freddie D. began as an "authentic slave" then his exceptional opportunities challenge that authenticity in the eyes of both whites and those African Americans still contending with the peculiar institution.
so my friend and i (remember how I got into this?) started talking about things that we love about the south and he expressed some distaste for these urban lumberjack types. you know the ones – tousled hair, beard, red flannel shirt, and a not-so-secret love of bourbon. these bearded boys (who I have a not-so-secret soft spot for) served as our point of departure into the world of hand-crafting, beer brewing, bread baking, composting, gardening, and all the elements of this new urban homesteading movement. there are many aspects of this movement that my lil' soul attaches to the south. when i think baking biscuits i think mama. when i think working outside, sweating, i think daddy. but i drink bourbon like the old grandad i never had and am fonder of beards than i am of kittens (this may not be true) and the banjo is one of the sweetest sounds i know, but it certainly isn't a family tradition.
does this mean that my love of these things is any less genuine? does it make my southern love less authentic?
i think of this love of banjos, beards, bread, bourbon, and how this generation of twenty-somethings has attached some type of down home meaning to all of these things. it is true that my sweet Mama Grace worked in a cotton field, lived next door to sharecroppers, lost her farm, made homemade chocolate pie (with eggs for her own chiggens). my dad has shared stories of killing his own pigs and the workings of a garden you pull your own cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden until its time to plant collards and potatoes. green peanuts were for boiling and they were aplenty. this all happened, but not in my lifetime and does not exist in my memory. my heart feels a connection though, maybe it transcends generations and lived experience...maybe hearts can find a home through stories.
this connection between what existed, the present moment, and what we desire for our own lives may not fit into a mold of "authenticity" - i suppose i may be a fraud at times because what I love most can be disconnected from me directly, but this catalogs of lived history (stories included) builds up to the wholeness of the present moment. this notion of authenticity is fraught with complexity itself and deserves a blog post to itself.
one of my dearest friends told me something as he was driving me to my family's house in his really old, baby blue chevy pickup.
he said, "C, the past is important, but the now and next is where you gotta stay"
i think i'm one of those folks who suffers from the past too much and this can be life changing in both positive and negative ways.
i mean, my present and next is pretty rad (especially with talk of Dollywood and southern road trips in my near future) but the past is so important to me.
not just a personal past either (although to me, it is all personal), but i study history of our country and the world, i examine my own, and i sift out gifts while drudging through the mire.
i guess i just want to remember best so i can keep discovering the present. i want to revise my stories until they fit into the cubbyhole of memory they belong in, while still retaining historical accuracy. if history is a conversation then when can these stories be laid to rest? maybe when those memories exist alone, after they have been nestled into your head and heart they become a part of you. the authenticity is no longer relevant because you don't just remember with your mind, but it becomes more of a sensory recall...more like remembering with your heart.
Faulkner claimed that the past is never dead, so maybe it's okay to keep track of what's happened. To allow the past to infiltrate the present is only natural and inherently a part of the evolution of generations of parents and children and teaching and learning and sometimes just surviving. to engage in a discussion of authenticity is nearly impossible. so bearded banjo players from wherever you hail from, celebrate. what makes your heart sing and what drives the connection you have to that flannel shirt is valid. aesthetic doesn't always equate to experience...yet another topic for another post though.
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