I'm Back.

My mom is doing much better. She is has gotten a great deal of energy back. She seems to have to rock a little harder to get up.

A childhood friend passed away yesterday. I went to the wake. I learned that I will go to funerals but not wakes. It's hard to break the ice and meet everyone on such a solemn day. All those subtle family intricacies and you have no idea what to say to perfect strangers.

I found myself feeling intensely sad. People can mean so much to you their memory stays with you forever. It wasn't Amelia that I grieved so hard for, it was her mom, those days of unknowing what the future held.

I was the awkward tomboy who was WAY too loud. It's like when I opened my mouth, all the noise of my soul roared out. And so I stifled it. No wonder I woke up one morning determined to write.

I am a child of the South. A mix of humble Appalachia and the Grand Dame of the Old South which was pretty brutal if you weren't wealthy. So much of the South is created daily in the media. Sometimes there is a strain of truth but most of the time it is rubbish. Shock appeal substitutes for substance.

I have taped the Hollywood Hillbillies. Like a moth drawn to a flame, I'll watch every minute and know it is scripted, it is scripted, it is scripted. Hitting the done button on the DVR, I'll feel that blank wall descend when I have to accept nonsense as reality.

Actually the jokes are fairly good. My favorite is when mema tells some men to drink up at a bar, she'll start looking better. No self respecting woman would be that hard put. The ignorance and crudeness is painful.

They are from Grayson, Georgia which is supposed to be the backwoods. It's actually a suburb of a fairly affluent metro Atlanta county. Native Georgians call Atlantans Yankees because the area is saturated with transplants.

What I loved the most about this childhood friend is that she accepted me. I was an outsider looking in and she had the grace to let me feel included. I've walked a long walk in this life with more to go God willing. The crazy Southern myths are being spun as we sleep.