In January of 1983, a figure was carved out of muddled red clay on the banks of the Coosa River. For the next several months, through the relentless heat of the Alabama summer, the small sculpture baked in a kiln disguised as a womb, until, finally, it emerged in October, a girl. Her bones are made of Alabama Clay, the river's remnants are still flowing in her veins. If you look closely, at her hips, her wrists, her collar bones, you can just make out the sides and tips of weathered Creek arrowheads. Her brown eyes are dark, cool caves where catfish rest in the summer; her unruly hair, a cotton field, dancing in the breeze.
I've wasted 24 years pretending I could escape the South, that I could belong somewhere else, but with each loss, every death, my bones howl, and my heart breaks, for home.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
hostage monologue
It is 2008. It has been for, like, fourteen days. (Where have you been?)
Wesley and I moved to Georgia in 2003. Just seeing those words typed out on this screen is making my whole body itch. We bought our house in 2005, without considering--well, he may have--how long we'd be here. I'm starting to think that we'll be here forever. Are you trembling with fear? Is that just me?
I have always been the one in this relationship to day-dream of new faces and far-away places, but, lately, when he suggests such a life, I am instantly afraid. Where will we go? What will the people be like? What if it's awful and I hate it and I have no friends and what about school and our life here? I've never experienced these sort of feelings--this attachment to a place. I feel weak. It's disturbing. This may be the first time in my entire life that I've grown to love a place--to feel as though it is my home.
Perhaps Georgia is my captor and I'm experiencing Stockholm syndrome. At any rate, suddenly and unexpectedly, I fear change.
And then there are days like today, when I couldn't care less about caution, or the wind. Today, when I feel like I will die without a change of scenery. I want somewhere else--where I am surrounded by new people, new street-signs and skylines, and everything I see beneath the sun is brand-spanking new to me.
Maybe it's time. Maybe it's been time.
But where would we gooooooooooooooooooo? And how could we leave the Falcons?!?!?
Wesley and I moved to Georgia in 2003. Just seeing those words typed out on this screen is making my whole body itch. We bought our house in 2005, without considering--well, he may have--how long we'd be here. I'm starting to think that we'll be here forever. Are you trembling with fear? Is that just me?
I have always been the one in this relationship to day-dream of new faces and far-away places, but, lately, when he suggests such a life, I am instantly afraid. Where will we go? What will the people be like? What if it's awful and I hate it and I have no friends and what about school and our life here? I've never experienced these sort of feelings--this attachment to a place. I feel weak. It's disturbing. This may be the first time in my entire life that I've grown to love a place--to feel as though it is my home.
Perhaps Georgia is my captor and I'm experiencing Stockholm syndrome. At any rate, suddenly and unexpectedly, I fear change.
And then there are days like today, when I couldn't care less about caution, or the wind. Today, when I feel like I will die without a change of scenery. I want somewhere else--where I am surrounded by new people, new street-signs and skylines, and everything I see beneath the sun is brand-spanking new to me.
Maybe it's time. Maybe it's been time.
But where would we gooooooooooooooooooo? And how could we leave the Falcons?!?!?
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