Who will read my blog

I looked at my three blogs that I set up six months ago this morning. I set them up simply to find out what all the hoopla was about. Once they were set I really didn't have much of an inclination to blab about myself or anything else for that matter.

Now, as I look back, I see that only one person has decided to follow this blog. Therefore, I am writing today for that one thoughtful soul. Hello, out there! Thank you for reading. As soon as I figure out how to change my other blog I will have a blog that I am really interested in writing. But for you, today, I will write about the South and a woman of the South.

I want to write about a friend I made in South Carolina when I went to a conference in October. She is delightful. If she were from Georgia, I'd have to call her a peach, but since she is from SC I think I will say she is a GeeChee Girl. She is a true native, landowner for generations, graduate of South Carolina universities, and citizen of the state. I'll call her Lattie. If I were her neighbor I would certainly hang this moniker on her for affection and ease.

What I have learned from my her in our correspondence and meeting is that the south is still alive in its traditions of courtesy, gentility, and literary fluency. Lattie has generously given her time to answer questions, lend support on my writing projects, and share her hilarious and heartwarming stories of living in the South.

When I first had occasion to write to her she was on a committee in charge of registering me for a conference. I assailed her with endless questions and queries for advice. She wrote to me such erudite responses and offered such sage support and comfort to a beginning writer that I couldn't wait to meet her. She also rolled out the red carpet invitation to be a part, to make friends, and to participate, not as an outsider, but as a full fledged member of an organization that knew nothing of me but that I would travel a long way to learn.

At the conference, Lattie and I had occasion one evening to sit in a hotel lobby and share things about our lives. I learned that she was my son's age, almost 40, and had been through some harrowing life experiences but that she was as light in her heart as a girl of sixteen. We laughed and formed a bond of shared goals, sorrows, and the trials of living with outdoors men. Since that day I have thought of her often and written her quite a few times.

Last night I received a response from Lattie to my short letter telling her of losing my dog, best friend, and soul mate, Barney. Her letter, along with many stories I have been told over the last six weeks, has encouraged me to begin a new blog with stories of Dogs, Best Friends, Lost and Found. I will work on this right away and re-post my new blog site for you, my one follower. I hope you are a dog or animal lover and can begin to share with me some of your stories, soon.
Thanks for listening about my dear girl, Lattie, and hope your day shines with love and energy.
Misplaced Southern Belle
P.S. It has been below zero here for about two weeks. Though the bare charcoal trees make a gorgeous scene sprouting from the white blanket of snow, I know that the orange morning sunrise has already fallen across the beaches and pine forests of the southeast, and I long to stand on the shore with the wind in my hair and my toes dug into the sand to greet this day.

Reading works by Dorothea Benton Frank

At the end of her book, Shem Creek, Dorothea Benton Frank says something like...one of the saddest mistakes you can make is to live (stay) in a place you don't belong...



So, thinking about how much I agree with that statement I thought I would make this blog for misplaced southern belles. That exact title "Misplaced Southern Belles" seems to have been taken already for another blog which makes it clear to me that I am not alone. Are there more of you out there?



I spent the last two days thinking long and hard about being misplaced and staying where I do not belong. I have been trying to move out of my life for two years and find I cannot. It begs the question: is it the place or is it me? Can a person be misplaced or are the just maladjusted?



I lived in Illinois for four years when I was a young woman. Not a day went by that I didn't want to leave. When I finally moved to Arizona it was like a veil was lifted and I could finally see the sunshine again.



Now, I think ,sometimes, that I have an ideal home and situation. I have a beautiful farm and a job where I can choose my own hours. Yet, somehow, I have become distant from my lifelong friends, habits, interests and desires. I feel the culture here is toxic. The people are base and incapable of true connection.



I long for the south. I long for the coastal breezes and the smell of salt air. I miss seeing people dressed up for the day as if it were a special occasion just to be alive. I need some gentility and boundaries. I actually despise the habit people here have of just showing up at my door, unannounced, uninvited and with nothing to do but barge in.



I think my car keys belong in my pocketbook not in the vehicle. I think that thank you notes are always appropriate. I can not believe that no one invites anyone for cocktails, dinner, or over just to play cards or charades. Do you know that when they have a bridal shower in the Midwest, the use folding chairs set in rows, and do not serve a drop of punch (much less spiked punch) until the last gift has been opened and that the bride and bridesmaids wear blue jeans to the shower? Unthinkable.



It is still unbelievable to me even after 8 years here that those same blue jean clad brides have thirteen cousins who have at least one baby out of wedlock and they are lining up all of those overfed and undereducated young women to be bridesmaids. Deplorable.



I tell you if I have to sit down to another Thanksgiving meal where they put noodles on top of their mashed potatoes I think I will just turn in my ticker and ask to line up for the pearly gates.



Anyway, it is summer and I am trying to save a bad crop of tomatoes. After taking somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds of produce to share with my co-workers last year (with not one thank you or casserole as a return gift) I would have thought someone might have offered a cutting from their favorite flower or an invitation to a fish fry. But no.



I guess I just don't fit in here. I don't belong. I am certainly a misplaced person and though I never thought of myself as a southern belle, I can see now that I am. In my mind and in my past I sparkled, I wore tiarras, I had several types of white gloves. My youthful closet bulged with ballgowns and under my bed were three dress boxes full of dried nosegays and corsages. I went to teas and learned the proper way to cross my ankles and walk up and down stairs. All of this is wasted here. I am forgeting which things should not be talked about, like money and religion.



I want to go home but I don't know where home is anymore.