Lovin' the South

Nineteen years ago today, we packed our two, small, crying children and all of our possessions a moving van and set out across the country to our “new life, in the South.”

I grew up in Colorado. My husband grew up in California. We spent our early years together near my family, in Boulder. Our kids were born there. I always assumed we’d die there. Then, in the late ‘80s, the Western economy took a nasty turn and, in hopes of brighter prospects, Mr. Clark took a job in Atlanta.

We had no idea what we were in for. I had seen “Gone With the Wind” a bunch of times, and been on one Anti-Bellum Trail bus tour with my family as a child. I knew most beauty pageant queens came from the South. I knew Southern people talked slower and were supposed to be more hospitable than the rest of us.

I also knew I would be homesick, and that my kids would be mad about being uprooted. What we were gaining wasn’t as obvious as what we were giving up. We had our work cut out for us…and, that didn’t even include the house.

Instead of settling in an Alpharetta Swim Tennis – the way “Cookie,” the realtor, wanted, we bought a “historic restoration property” in Winder. There had been a fire. It was condemned. The yard was overgrown. It was rumored to be haunted. But, we felt sure all this 1903-built Greek Revival beauty needed was some TLC and she’d be restored to her Tara-like glory once again…

It took us a year to get the house up to livable snuff. It took us another year or so to actually make her feel like home. The kids settled into their “awful new school.” They made friends and got involved in activities. Mr. Clark’s job went well. The people we met were generous and hospitable. They did speak more slowly, but there was a charm to the lilting pace and drawl of it all. The South had begun to weave us into her web…

Five years into “the Southern experiment,” as we once called it, my kids had definitely taken root. My daughter had an obvious Southern accent, and my son (initially my hold-out child) had started proclaiming he “loved this place” and, “was never going to leave.” My secret (and not so secret) dreams of returning West seemed to be at serious risk…

Ten years into “the Southern experiment,” as it was no longer called, we were entrenched. The South had us in her web and she was not letting go. Both kids did well in high school and were headed off to East Coast colleges. Mr. Clark’s Atlanta-based work was going gang-busters. My daughter was deeply in love with her high school boyfriend. My son was proclaiming that he was going to “move to Athens” after “getting through college” and “traveling some.”

Sixteen years into what is now known as “our life in the South,” my daughter married her high school boyfriend. They settled in Atlanta. A couple of years later, her brother married his UGA sweetheart. They (true to my son’s high school proclamation) live in Athens. And, here I sit - still the mistress of a much quieter “Tara” - squarely half-way between my two grown children’s lives. Any doubt about what happened to those hopes of moving back West?

Like it or not, I am firmly woven into the web of what has turned out to be a wonderful, wild ride of a near-twenty year Southern adventure.

I will admit, I do still dream of moving back West - for try as I have, I have never really fit in here the way my kids do. If I had a $1 for every “Bless her heart,” or “Well, never mind, she’s not from around here,” that’s been spoken on my behalf, I’d be a good bit wealthier than I am…

But, if “home is where the heart is,” I guess my Western heart has found its’ home - right here in the South. Maybe by the time I have grand children, I will have at least learned how to make a decent pitcher of sweet tea!