On the Road, Again

My friend, Eileen, says it is the families of “the South” who put the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional.’ Research says, in order to resist repeating the patterns of childhood one must move at least 250 miles away from where one was raised - from one’s childhood environment. Twenty-four years ago, after having all the ’fun’ I could stand, I moved lock, stock and U-Haul from Memphis, Tennessee, to a town in southern Louisiana so small it is easier to describe by location than by name. Somewhere further south than either Baton Rouge or New Orleans and about equal distance from both.

Single and with a ten year old daughter in tow, I rolled through the rich delta land of Mississippi, past miles of kudzu threatening to suffocate highway I-55 South. I drove right on past the exit signs for towns of blues legend like Clarksdale, and within spittin’ distance of Civil Rights landmarks whose names and reputations had sparked sometimes volatile family dinner conversations during my rebellious, adolescent years. The Tallahatchie River, where they dumped the body of young, naïve Emmet Hill; Jackson, where Medgar Evers was shot outside his own home. I rode past rivers and towns named by or for Native Americans who once, rightfully, claimed this rich portion of earth as their own - Tupelo, Yalobusha, Tillotoba, Grenada, Winona.

And I kept on rolling. Right into a land I knew next to nothing about - the land of the Cajun, of whom I had been forewarned. Everyone I knew, who had also never been to Louisiana, eagerly shared their experience and advice. I was told more than once not to make a Cajun angry with me. Supposedly the fuse was short, the memory long, and the families ties infrangible. I could find myself floating down some bayou one morning with my feet bound and my hands tied - at best. I was somewhat known for being too outspoken, so the warnings were well intentioned.

For all that, I had no idea, really, what to expect. I am and have long been a practitioner of the "what's the worse that can happen?" school of thought. I concluded the worse that could happen is I could always go home again. But home was somewhere I was leaving in my quest to find another way to live, another person to be, and to get away from familial expectations - which always seem to get in the way of self-discovery. I intended to stay at least long enough to find out where I really wanted to be.

The move was easier than you might expect. I wasn't raised with a strong sense of family tradition or ties to place. We moved so often I can’t recall the time I didn’t know how to pack my own suitcase. Sometimes we left one home for a “new” one and never returned to collect what we’d left behind - toys, clothing, furniture, relatives "by marriage"; sometimes we never even said goodbye to friends, classmates, teachers. I learned early home is something you carry inside. Maybe part of me was looking for something more to carry with me.

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I didn’t show up on the bayou without a plan. I came here as a teacher and fully expected to find teaching pretty much the same wherever it occurred. I did not expect to fall in love with the bayou, the people, and the slow, easy passing of one day into the next. Coming to southern Louisiana from anywhere else in the United States is like leaving your home country to visit another. It is more than the climate - the humidity and the hurricanes and the oppressive summer heat. It is more than the geography - the bayous (by-yooz), the cypress, and the Spanish Moss dripping from the Live Oak trees. It is more than the multitude of accents that distinguish one Cajun community from another. These are so varied and sprinkled with archaic French expressions that becoming accustomed to the dialect and speech patterns in one small town does not ensure you will understand what is being said “down de bayou.” It is much more than the music, the fun and the spirit of “laissez les bon temps roulez!”

And it is more than I can tell in one day. But tomorrow is another day, Scarlette.