limeade slushes & holding the door open

or
a reflection on growing up in the south

*the reader should note the writer Does Indeed recognize the difference between the deep south & texas. there are pertinent & important differences that can & should be elaborated on by someone (not me). but for the sake of this "piece", the author will call texas "the south"...be able to handle it, as we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

so, with the old job, i used to go to arkansas at least a few times a year-and i was always surprised how driving out of the airport & seeing fields of cows & open space made me kinda smirk-y. i wouldn't have expected it, as i rarely go to home, and don't visit texas unless on a transfer flight (sorry mom). this is not an accident. i left my home state in a whirlwind of rancor & angst...never quite feeling right about it & never accepting my time there as anything other than a prison sentence. when i packed up my uhaul & finally got out, all i could remember was how i loathed every last detail.

so why the clandestine smiles when i get back to the south? am i repressing pleasant memories? do i (gasp) actually like things about growing up white in america?

i think the change first starts to get my attention when i am putting my carryon into the overhead. i go to slug my 80 lb (clearly surpassing the weight limit) suitcase & i feel it lighten immediately... wtf??!? my suspicion increases...i start to think for whole seconds that all of my shit has been siphoned through the torn front pocket...when all of sudden-BAM. i get it. that guy 14 rows back saw little ole me lifting something other than a fan or sweet tea to my lipsticked lips...and ran up to help me.

chivalry.

oh yeah...that was that thing where guys help girls out. scary feminist take these symbolic gestures as signs of an overriding socialized bias of female fraility. no, no, no. i always took the door being opened for me, being the first to leave the elevator & help with heavy things as just fan-fucking-tastic. i forgot about these southern men & their manners & how warm my blushing cheeks feel.

i like that.

i become more wide-eyed as i am greeted by the first stranger walking opposite me in the airport terminal. "how're you doin' t'day?". it always takes me 3 or 4 of these interactions before i remember this is what people who don't know one another do. oh yeah-and everyone makes eye contact. especially the opposite sex. age, race, amount of botox...it doesn't matter. you make eye contact. oh, and you smile. that's a big part. (i recall my very-different-opinion of this behavior when i left the state many years ago...all this namby-pamby smiling...because these southern smiling idiots are silly-headed ninnymuggins. with cotton between their ears.)

now i'm all dopey smiling back.

more later on this topic, gotta stand in line for mr. plane.