The old saying goes that your heart is where your home is. Or vice versa, because I never have understood that one. My home is currently in an old building in northern Kentucky. My heart is in a little cottage near the ocean, with a couple of great old oaks in the back yard and a single palm tree in the front. I can practically describe each board, each nail hole, each squeak of the front porch step of this small abode, almost as if I've lived there before. The paint is peeling a little on the outside, and the windows in the front all have dog nose prints on them that need to be cleaned. But, the old motel chairs on the side porch are comfortable and a little cool in the early evening, and the smell of honeysuckle, growing profusely on the back chain link fence, is almost intoxicating.
Now, if I had any wits about me when I was younger, I would have recognized all the red flags in my soul that told me to pursue these longings on my own and I'd be a happy little gal with no regrets or wistful thoughts paths not taken (see previous posts – very unhealthy). But, I also searched for a life companion, and most of the time, their places of home weren't my places of home.
There are some things I don't expect to be forgiven for, by any one. But, I still wrestle with my own conscience over the fact that I'm not in that infernal little house (at my age), cursing the fire ants and grimacing over the fact that I can't keep my zinnias watered enough to make them bloom.
I'm a Southern gal who never learned to talk back, like most good Southern women do and will and should. I let too many people have the upper hand, and I eat way too much of the bad things and not enough of the good things. I never cultivated enough friendships, and I miss the people I did develop friendships with. I carry that burden myself because I tend to disappear, and for a while, these people try to drag me out, but I always cower back into the darkness.
But, what I miss most is Spanish moss. For those of you reading this, Spanish moss is a uniquely Southern beast, a parasite that can suck the life blood out of even the heartiest of trees given, say 200 years. It grows downward from the branches and drapes along each knob and crook in the tree from way on high. The slightest wind can make the beautiful grey tendrils wave in the breeze, and when it rains, the color deepens and drops of wet diamonds hang off each small strand. I cannot even begin to describe how I felt when, after living away from the moss for a year, I started seeing the stuff hanging from the trees along the interstate on a trip back down South.
Spanish moss to me means something deep and mysterious within my gut. To us gals who grew up with it, it means chiggers if you don't handle it carefully. When I played with it in the back yard, it became spaghetti at my play-time diner (and bark off the pine trees was always bacon, so most people ordered spaghetti and bacon). I braided huge veils of it one year for pigtails for my Halloween costume (Bo Peep, and my poor dog Sandy had to wear a white cape so that she looked somewhat like a sheep – not). Dad hated it, because it coated every tree and every shrub in the yard, especially during spring and he had to pick it off. But, on the up side, when he burned the huge mounds of it in the garden, I'd grab the coat hanger and the marshmallows and have a pretend camp-out.
So, I guess it really is something that is born and bred in to you, this need to be around the places that make you happy when you wake up. For me, it's the smell of gardenias on hot summer days and a brightness of sunshine that makes your eyes hurt and your skin burn. It's the kitschy tourist stands and fresh fish off the docks. It's sand that you can't vacuum out of the carpet on the floor of the car and azaleas that bloom almost year-round.
It's that damn Spanish moss.
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