Newscoma

So Mabel and I are staying at Ross’ place for a couple of days. I’ve been exploring Memphis recently. I really do love finding things that were in plain sight that I’ve never noticed before. There is a bit of naughty in Memphis, which I’m rather enjoying. What I mean, I guess, is that I’m finding out different social mores about this state that I didn’t know.

Southerners are a polite lot of people until you piss them off. We say things like “Bless your heart” when we really mean something else like “Dumb decision, Bubba” or “I love her/him but …” There is a level of etiquette that you see in Nashville or even in Hoots Proper where you have to say something nice right before you say something negative. I shouldn’t be giving the secrets of being a southerner away but … you know what I’m talking about.

What I’m finding in Memphis, because I’m doing the same thing here I do at home and that’s just talk to people that I don’t know, yes, there is a level of polite but I’m finding that Memphians also will take their bullshitometer out and hit you in the head with it if they think it is necessary. I think Nashville, in some ways, uses their polite “voices” more than Memphians do. And Hoots, well that’s a whole other can of  Spam but Memphis folks tend to just call it when they see it.

And they do it with a grin.

I find that to be refreshing.

The baggage, born from my Southern upbringing, follows me with every step and breath I take. It is filled with magic and dark elements, of a life lived and yet to live.

Of dirty nasty things as well as small boxes of live and a life lived, this trunk that goes with me everywhere I go.

I am constantly confounded how it is chained to me, to who I am. I stare at it warily, wondering if there is a way to leave it in the closet when I leave for the day to another eight hours of work, where I try, and often fail, to make a difference.

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