Another mystery solved
I've felt kind of odd in the month we've been back up here in Richmond, but I've never really been able to put my finger on it. This morning, I did.
I'm home.
This morning, on my commute into work, I was listening to Alison Krauss + Union Station's Live double CD at excessive volume. (Buy it. Don't ask. Just buy it.) The song I had on was "Oh Atlanta":
Oh Atlanta, I hear you callin'
I'm comin' back to you one fine day
No need to worry, there ain't no hurry
I'm on my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia
Subliminally, that must've shifted the last tumbler in the back of my head and unlocked things, because suddenly something hit me, something that explains why I've been feeling like I'm feeling. And that simple fact is, I'm back in Virginia. I'm home.
I lived in South Carolina for seven and a half years. I loved it and I still do. Kiawah Island and Hunting Island State Park are the closest things I've found yet to Heaven on earth. I'll defend the Palmetto State to the hilt against some of the sheer bullshit that people throw against it. No, the people are not a bunch of racists. No, they are not stupid. No, it is not a backward place. (Yes, the cockroaches are effin' huge.) Hell, even my allergies were less severe in South Carolina. It isn't perfect, but nowhere is.
I had thought that because I wasn't happy for most of my first stint in Richmond ten years ago, and because I did like living in Columbia, and because my family had basically torn itself apart since my dad died, I'd broken my association with Virginia forever. I might not stay in South Carolina my whole life, so I thought, but wherever I ended up next, it wouldn't be back in the state of my birth.
Enter a job opportunity that wound up being yet another chance for God to laugh at me and tell me, "Boy, don't never say never."
So here I am, in Richmond, two hours west of where I grew up. And all of a sudden, it feels like I'm reconnected with...something. Something I can't define, something I can't quite explain except that maybe it's the feeling you get when you feel like you're where you're supposed to be, or at least closer to it than you were.
We Virginians can be a funny lot. Particularly in this end of the state, native Virginians have a historical superiority complex matched only, in my experience, by Charlestonians. We've been here three hundred and ninety-eight years. We beat the stinking Pilgrims here by thirteen years. We were carving a settlement out of the wilderness before the Pilgrims ever left England. John Smith was putting the moves on Pocahontas before anybody ever heard of Plymouth Rock. We even held Thanksgiving first (Berkeley Plantation, December, 1619), but the Yankees had better marketing, so they got the national holiday.
(You know how many Virginians it takes to change a light bulb, don't you? Seven. One to change the bulb and six to reminisce about how good the old one was.)
Fact is, there's an identity about being a Virginian that's strong. We are the Mother of Presidents, the Old Dominion. We are the home of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Lee, and Jackson. I knew I used to have that identity, that pride, but until this morning, I didn't know I still had it. But I guess I still do.
So that's one mystery solved. I'm home, or at least a lot closer to it than I was. This Southern boy is back home in ol' Virginny.
Even if the only Southern accents I hear at work are from southern India.
I'm home.
This morning, on my commute into work, I was listening to Alison Krauss + Union Station's Live double CD at excessive volume. (Buy it. Don't ask. Just buy it.) The song I had on was "Oh Atlanta":
Oh Atlanta, I hear you callin'
I'm comin' back to you one fine day
No need to worry, there ain't no hurry
I'm on my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia
Subliminally, that must've shifted the last tumbler in the back of my head and unlocked things, because suddenly something hit me, something that explains why I've been feeling like I'm feeling. And that simple fact is, I'm back in Virginia. I'm home.
I lived in South Carolina for seven and a half years. I loved it and I still do. Kiawah Island and Hunting Island State Park are the closest things I've found yet to Heaven on earth. I'll defend the Palmetto State to the hilt against some of the sheer bullshit that people throw against it. No, the people are not a bunch of racists. No, they are not stupid. No, it is not a backward place. (Yes, the cockroaches are effin' huge.) Hell, even my allergies were less severe in South Carolina. It isn't perfect, but nowhere is.
I had thought that because I wasn't happy for most of my first stint in Richmond ten years ago, and because I did like living in Columbia, and because my family had basically torn itself apart since my dad died, I'd broken my association with Virginia forever. I might not stay in South Carolina my whole life, so I thought, but wherever I ended up next, it wouldn't be back in the state of my birth.
Enter a job opportunity that wound up being yet another chance for God to laugh at me and tell me, "Boy, don't never say never."
So here I am, in Richmond, two hours west of where I grew up. And all of a sudden, it feels like I'm reconnected with...something. Something I can't define, something I can't quite explain except that maybe it's the feeling you get when you feel like you're where you're supposed to be, or at least closer to it than you were.
We Virginians can be a funny lot. Particularly in this end of the state, native Virginians have a historical superiority complex matched only, in my experience, by Charlestonians. We've been here three hundred and ninety-eight years. We beat the stinking Pilgrims here by thirteen years. We were carving a settlement out of the wilderness before the Pilgrims ever left England. John Smith was putting the moves on Pocahontas before anybody ever heard of Plymouth Rock. We even held Thanksgiving first (Berkeley Plantation, December, 1619), but the Yankees had better marketing, so they got the national holiday.
(You know how many Virginians it takes to change a light bulb, don't you? Seven. One to change the bulb and six to reminisce about how good the old one was.)
Fact is, there's an identity about being a Virginian that's strong. We are the Mother of Presidents, the Old Dominion. We are the home of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Lee, and Jackson. I knew I used to have that identity, that pride, but until this morning, I didn't know I still had it. But I guess I still do.
So that's one mystery solved. I'm home, or at least a lot closer to it than I was. This Southern boy is back home in ol' Virginny.
Even if the only Southern accents I hear at work are from southern India.