Thoughts from 2016

I wrote this after a trip to Acworth in June 2016.

Although I moved to the west in 1989, my Southern roots still run deep.

My first 40 years in the South were very influential in making me who I am.

“American by birth, Southern by the Grace of God”

Love and Peace,

Linda

It is my last night back in my beloved Georgia and I take a walk on the trail to the lake. It is late evening and the sky is cloudy. The air is heavy and damp as always…after so many years in the West I am acutely aware of the difference in the way it feels.

I will miss the peace of the lake trail. There aren’t many people on the trail, but as I round the corner to cross the footbridge, I see two hammocks that have been hung in the trees and there are two young women talking and laughing. They say hello and I stop to talk to them.

I am now at the lake and the evening fishermen are on the dock and there are a few fishing boats on the lake. Children are on the playground. People say “hello” and “good evening” and “how ya’ll doing”. I pass a man in an Ohio State shirt and he says hello. I can’t resist a “Roll Tide” and he laughs.

As I start back up toward the little town of Acworth, I look one last time at the things that are so Georgia…the baskets of flowers hanging on the mail boxes, the screened in porches, and the kudzu growing up the telephone poles. I am sure that in some places the kudzu has grown a foot since I walked this same route twenty four hours ago.

I am almost back and if I listen I can hear the sounds of evening, the crickets and the birds chirping their good nights. I look down the street and see it not as it is, but as I remember southern nights. I am a barefoot little girl running through the yard and squealing with excitement as I catch lightning bugs. Maybe there is one last bike ride before dark and Mama calls me in.

Those summer nights seemed endless and even now they are magical.