I Do...Declare

I don't get the opportunity to read much anymore, but I am one of those rare individuals that dearly love a good story, and I recently had the pleasure of reading my new issue of Garden & Gun from cover to cover, including one lovely story about Southern women.

Now, I will heartily defend my Southern soul at the drop of a flyswatter, proudly proclaim my love of fried green tomatoes and red toenail polish (is there any other color?) and can eat one mess o'collard greens, complete with pepper vinegar and ham hocks that would embarrass most grown men.

Everything said was so true, except perhaps the innate love of chubby babies, although my own dear daughter was quite the little cream puff when she was but a toddler. She came by it natural, as her daddy was pretty tall and not skinny and I, well, am a bit on the fluffy side myself.

Southern women have an obsession with their hair, and don't let any of them tell you different. I do not care if it is straight as a board, curly as a Brillo pad or resembles the husk on a corncob, it's always a source of worry for us, in any incarnation. We can say, "Oh, I really don't care how my hair looks," but it's a boldface lie, and we'll admit it if you call us out, with eyes lowered and a blush on our cheeks. We color, cut, curl, perm, straighten and iron until it's practically screaming for a mayonnaise conditioner with extra olive oil thrown in. As for myself, I bleach my hair now, although it does have a lot of, shall I say, natural platinum blonde growing in. I wear it like I've stuck my finger in a light socket, with random sprigs every which way, held in place by a healthy dose of Murray's Pomade and Aqua Net. I like to call it "Jeep Hair," because at the very heart of my adventurous soul lies a 1972 bright yellow Jeep with no doors and a bikini top, and I want my hair to be ready. Now, there are some Southern women who don't do a damn thing with their hair, but that ain't saying they haven't thought seriously hard about it.

The South is more than grits with extra butter, more than "y'all" and more than onion rings at the Varsity in Atlanta. The South is not just mansions among granddaddy oaks, covered in Spanish moss, although that is such a pretty picture that it literally brings tears to my eyes . The South is every bit as refined as the finest haute coutre of Paris and New York, just in our own way. Sure, we wear cowboy boots from time to time. But, they cost every bit of $200, and it's okay to get mud and horseshit on them because, well, that's what they're made for. Here is the South, we use things up and when they're all used up, we find something else to do with them. My own beloved cowboy boots with the unfixable soles are destined to be planters in my garden pretty soon, once I can part with them. Ashes to ashes.

Being Southern is a delight. The weather down here is magnificent, most of the time, and we all understand the hardness of life, as well as the infinite softness. Magnolias are associated with the South, and for good reason. The scent of a magnolia in bloom is overwhelmingly calming and the flower is just as white as the ice cream from Dairy Queen. Yet, the tree is so hardy, it can withstand ice and snow for months on end, only to rise up when the spring begins its thaw.

I love the accent of a true Southerner. A man with a Mississippi drawl turns my head every single time, and when a man opens the door for me, and I don't know him from Adam, I know that he "done growed up" with a Southern mama.

The South holds magic for me, in Charleston and Atlanta, in Cape Fear and Gulf Shores. Little towns, like McIntosh, Florida and McClellanville, South Carolina, where homes are still draped in moss and have sleeping porches, will always pull me off the interstates, no matter what my destination is. Sure, we don't have snow at Christmas, at least most Southern states don't – with the exception of our "northern" Southern states like Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee, but I can forego that pleasure. I can always travel up there to play in the snow. I like where I live – no, I love where I live. I love what I am, and who I am, and where I am. I'm outspoken, hardheaded, stubborn and yes, quite, quite Southern.