87.

a friend of mine has recently asked that i give some time and reflection to the concept of southern hospitality, and honestly, it's got me all mixed up.

there's been something pestering me like that one fly in your study when you're trying to finish those final ten pages of reading...i'm not sure how to best articulate what it is that has been buzzing in the corner of the room and interrupting my silence. i think, as i sit and think about the south and southernness and authenticity i am constantly negotiating what i see as the fetishization of all things southern. i fear my curiosities folding into those romanticized popularized images of the hip south. let's start small y'all. i've seen, heard, and experienced an increase in usage of this highly-efficient, all-inclusive contraction in print media, personal correspondence, and even in hip foodie joints. under the graphic of a letter pressed pig, the menu reads "eat some Q, y'all!" i made this up, but you get the idea. branding the south. so there's that.

then there is me. sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair, eating fresh tomatoes, boiled peanuts, pickled okra, listening to songs about the bible, whisky, and getting the stink eye from my dad if i forget to tack on 'yes sir' when answering a question. i listen to him tell me stories about his own personal experiences of growing up, the son of sharecroppers in the south, and picking himself up by his borrowed bootstraps to become the spitting image of that faithful American Dream we've all heard so much about and my ear is tweaked towards determining what about his story is quintessentially southern. what, i wonder, does that even matter.

and just when you thought i was done worrying over the details (dern devil!) then comes the issue of trying to determine what can qualify as being distinctly southern. does the south have rights over rocking chairs, opening doors for ladies, and biscuits and gravy? these are, in fact, artifacts and habits that are results of living in a specific culture...a culture that my daddy, his daddy before him, and so on and soforth, was brought up in.

i'm a little stuck now in the nit and the grit of the identity that is "authentically southern." to move past this, i presume, i'm just gonna have to gather in my experience and not actually challenge it with those pesky thoughts of 'being southern' or not. rather, the challenge is to recognize how my experience stands up next to the predetermined 'southern' structure, culture, and traditions. to learn enough to know how the the south, specifically traditions and cultures and habits of being that have been pillars in this southern society for some time now, has informed and shaped my experience rather than allowing the significance of my own lessons to slip through the front porch cracks like those marlboro cigarette butts i used to steal from my mama.