cimorene

i don't remember who it was who was talking about the different ways of feeling your "home". no, you know, i think it was probably

wayfairer. she's a transplanted southerner like myself and i often identify strongly with the posts she makes on the subject, or at least feel strong emotional responses to them. in one sense, alabama was never a home to me. i was making fun of people's accents and poor grammar at the age of seven, when i hadn't even lived in the pancreas of dixie (as daddy so delightfully puts it) for six months.

but in a way that i didn't even begin to dimly realise until i was at least fifteen or so, alabama has grown into my heart as a physical place and will always be home. the landscape, the weather, the flora are all home to me.

every time i return from a trip, when i reach the area, it's like my entire body lets out a metaphysical breath i haven't known i was holding. when i flew home from college, it would start to happen at the north carolina or atlanta layover, where i was hearing southern accents. when i flew back from six weeks in japan, it happened at the first airport where the ratio of black to white people went up to the about 50/50 that feels "normal" to me. when perry and i drove home from texas last summer, it happened about midway through louisiana, as the landscape gradually turned hilly, wooded, green and lush.

i get little cravings for the carpets of fallen magnolia leaves, the big white and pink azalea bushes, the clusters of irises and daffodils, the sun-baked lawns of the public schools near my house, the winding hilly roads where you never see around the corner because the roads are lined with trees, the living blankets of kudzu.

finland is both hilly and heavily forested, and the forests are a nice mix of evergreen and deciduous. it's nice that i don't feel like i'm going to fall off the ground into the sky, like i tend to do out on the prairie. but i wonder if i'll ever get over this.