it IS a big deal...

I realized something this week. I have fallen in love with the South.

I was on a ride earlier and smelled honeysuckle. Amazed, I looked around ( I was not zooming along... I am not in very good shape and the country farm roads that surround me are hilly) and sure enough, there were just a few blooms on a nearby vine. My heart smiled. I started thinking about everything in the South I enjoy and I realized I would be sad to leave it.

My first and true love will always be the wilderness mountains and deserts of the West. Nothing can replace their grandeur and beauty and the way I feel when I am there. But I have grown to love the more subtle and complicated beauty of the South. I read an article in Southern Living (yes... I KNOW!..I actually subscribed to a southern women's magazine. They have FABULOUS recipes and southern gardening knowledge among other fun stuff) about a Southerner who had recently returned, trying to explain to her NYC friends why and how she loves the South. In her words:

"... the South, like anything worth knowing, is complicated. And complexity married to beauty never bores."

also "...the Southerness-otherness-one finds only in Dixie, a land of stark contradiction, where grace and guilt sit shoulder to shoulder, where the past isn't the past, and redemption is ever an offer."

Her words resonated with me and I realized that I had grown to love it here...grace and guilt sitting shoulder to shoulder. When I shared all this to Jason he was surprised and said, "..........wow...........that is a BIG deal........"

I found this on my walk with Molly this morning. I first thought I should take a picture where you can't see my incredibly messy kitchen, but then changed my mind. Life is real, right? One more thing. My entire kitchen smells like honeysuckle now and it make me happy. But if you look close you will see leaves that have been ravaged by some bug. Complex beauty, not perfect or serene, but beautiful all the same.