Being Amber Rhea

My good friend Miss Debris Blanche has moved to Wordpress.com, with a new blog name, a new layout - and, I believe, a first post that should win a prize for “best first post.”

In addition to just being hilarious and a great writer, she does a good job of putting into words an approximation of why I love the South:

So, why haven’t I left yet??? I guess b/c, for better or worse, it’s my home. There is a special vein of insanity in the South that can’t be duplicated. The city I live in has a law on the books requiring everyone to own a handgun. And, for some reason, a great number of Southerners enjoy Civil War re-enactment — I guess so they can lose over and over and over again!

On the other hand, we have the best food, (many of) the best writers, and (many of) the best bands/musicians (such as R.E.M., the B-52’s, Ray Charles and James Brown … and the Allman Brothers, if that’s your thing).

This is a very friendly, hospitable place, yet it’s also an incredibly warped and haunted place. Love it or leave it, they say … if the right opportunity arose, I might go. (Though I’d probably come back eventually!) But in the meantime, it makes great copy, and maybe, just maybe, us thinkin’ folk who stay behind can keep fighting the good fight and help drag our homeland into the 21st century. Even if it’s as small a start as being able to buy a 6-pack at Kroger on Sunday.

This is something I’ve found hard to convey to non-Southerners, and so I’ve taken the tack of saying, “If you’re not from the South, you don’t get it.” Now I can just point people to this description!

I’ll bemoan certain aspects of the South from time to time - and believe me, there is plenty worth bemoaning - but whenever I hear someone who isn’t from here talking about the South this and the South that, I can get pretty vitriolic. (Like the friend who started pontificating about “What I don’t like about the South is…” sophomore year at NYU, until I stopped him and asked, “Have you ever been to the South?” Yeah, I think you can figure out what his answer was.) I guess it’s like, if you have siblings, you can make fun of your siblings but nobody else better dare.

One difference between the excerpt above, though, and my feeling on the matter: the opportunity has arisen, and I did leave, and I came back - twice. And I never want to leave again. This is my home, and when I was away, I missed something that I hadn’t even realized I valued. I ran to New York after high school, and really, can you blame me? 18 years in Augusta was rough, to use a wild understatement. And that year and a half at NYU was a wonderful experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I wouldn’t know Dacia if it weren’t for that, or a few other friends who, admittedly, I mainly keep in touch with via Facebook these days. I probably would’ve stayed at NYU for the whole four years if money and other life circumstances hadn’t intervened, and I wonder what my life would be like now if I’d done that?

-But anyway, not to get off on a tangent… the time when I really felt a seering homesickness was when I lived in Texas. Granted, I had other really difficult stuff going on at the time, but I don’t think Dallas and I were ever meant for each other. My one consolation, as silly as it might sound now, was sweet tea from the Chick-Fil-A on the other side of Central Expressway. And for as much as I used to hate on Atlanta when I’d never even really been here before, isn’t it hilarious (and ironic?) that this place feels more like home to me than anywhere else ever has.

Can’t say I care for the Allman Brothers, though!