How blessed I must be to know that my friends in the South would not only oblige my request for a long visit but beg me to stay even longer. It is because of this kind of authentic generosity that I insist that Southern hospitality is genuine.
My first few days in the first home, I didn't get too much work done. I was settling in, deciding where my most auspicious writing space might be, readjusting to a North Carolina climate, and also adjusting to my host and hostess' schedules. Lillian (not her real name) works from home, and is up at 8 a.m. chatting away on conference calls while David (also not his real name), retired but still an early riser, goes about various tasks including making gourmet meals three times a day for Lillian and for whomever happens by. She let me know that their home was my home and that I should make myself welcome including helping myself to whatever snacks I found in their well-stocked pantry.
Had I been smarter I would have mirrored her schedule and closed my bedroom door from distractions, as Lillian did, during work hours. Instead, I wandered down to the kitchen way too often and, after a day or so, gave completely in to eating three artfully prepared meals a day. It would in fact be my expectation of culinary treats that would organize my time with the two, and between meals I either ventured outdoors to enjoy their lush garden or gazed at it from my upstairs window. The writing clarity I longed for days into my trip was I'm afraid ensconced in a blinding haze and scorching heat, a blanket of familiarity and even ironic comfort but not industriousness.
After a week or more, only one thought was becoming crystal clear: I would not be able to work in my friends' homes or maybe even in the South at all. I was too enraptured with being back where I had had my own thriving garden of children and of verbena, watermelon, and strawberries. Right before coming to this evident conclusion, I had visited also with several other friends--old work and church acquaintances and neighbors--from my days as a Tarheel. I had retraced steps, returning to former haunts for evidences in the air of my time spent in these places. I walked in my favorite historic district, which had always been the best excuse for taking a long lunch. I smelled the old smells, ones that people differently oriented in time cannot tolerate but that are are sweet, musky perfume to my nose as they create a sense of time and place that is just right.
Simply put, I was all too willing to ditch the well-laid plans I had packed in my travel bags before leaving The Hoosier State. Of course, I experienced several twinges of guilt for slacking off but not enough to make me snap into action. After all, there were no real deadlines looming, and it was easy enough for me to reason that getting reacquainted with my friends was in fact more important than any work demands, even ones I claimed to enjoy. So, my second week I just decided that my journey south was really about rekindling relationships and being back in a region of the country that always has enchanted me.
Perhaps it is a bit of a cliche to suggest that it's not about the amount of work that one gets done but the quality. I did produce at least one or two blog posts as I reflected on my travels, and, just as importantly, I learned something about writing, or at least about my writing. I learned that I need highly physical experiences and spiritual and soulful ones in order to feel most like myself and most inspired to write. I learned that geography is not just about land masses and other features, nor even cultural aspects alone if by cultural one means the way a people relate to, represent, and value places. Rather, geography is for me all of these things and also my sense that places are alive, more alive than we have known. Humid Southern air is thick and heavy with history, memory, residue, sights and smells. I met someone recently who lives in a grand old antebellum mansion in a small town that was occupied by the Union during the Civil War. This fellow informed me that there are still on his property slave cabins. I am convinced that within those wretched spaces and upon the air there are spiritual essences floating, swirling, and communing both with themselves and with living beings. Those spirits will light upon one's shoulders certainly if one invites them, and they will speak through any available medium. They will speak to any traveler or resident if she would only make herself available, and I do. I submit to a genus loci--spirit of a place--by aligning myself temporally, emotionally, and maybe also psychically. It's an experience much like symbiosis I guess or maybe channeling is a better metaphor. I simply let my own rhythm, movements, and thoughts become open to what I see, hear, feel. One has only a fat chance of experiencing life itself in this way if work is always foremost on the mind, if one is very task-oriented and linear, finding no greater discomfort than in not getting work done or in doing everything in a certain order.
In fact, As far as I am concerned temporarily suspending work concerns is not just the only way to experience the South; it is the only way to truly experience any place. One has to make deep connections, and, not to worry, finding one's way back to the individual self--as if such a thing existed--is as simple as getting back into one's car, onto train, or plane. The self-cast spell may linger for a bit, especially if one wants to stay connected, but before long it will be broken. Somewhere in the process of return, one should take out a journal and write.
