Whistlin'Dixie

I stood in line at my local grocery store exchanging pleasantries with the cashier, as I am wont to do, and this time it only took forty-five seconds for the nice lady to ask what I’m always asked out here in Southern California, “Where are you from? Are you from Texas?” You have to pity these poor people out here in California.They don’t know any better than to assume if someone has a Southern accent, they’re from Texas ( as if the state of Texas counts as a Southern state, which I say it doesn’t because everyone knows Texas is its own animal.)
I’m a transplanted Southerner who hails from the Mississippi Delta, and although I am now long in another region, it is no influence on the armor I wear around my southern DNA. It is its own protective shield, a source of self-identification, and I see the world and its people through the focused lense of my Southerness, which couldn’t be more convenient because it simplifies everything.
The truth is, I have a rote template of civility that divides the workings of the world into how you do, and how you shouldn’t; what is tacky, and what is acceptable; what you can wear before five O’clock, and what is only appropriate afterwards. But please keep in mind all this takes a back seat to the most important issue, which is when to send flowers versus when to bring food. I stand very firm on this one, so much so that when a tragedy struck a neighbor last year, it created an untenable quandary between myself and my friend from California. She was convinced that sending flowers from our local florist was the way to go, while I was unyielding in my belief that going over and bringing food was the only option.
Sometimes I am flat exhausted with the weight of my Southerness, but not enough to consider putting it down. Would that I were capable, I’d lay it down gladly at the feet of my single girl-friend, who insists she wants to “keep it real” with her newly acquired paramour, who appears to be at variance with her romantic schedule. She claims she doesn’t want to play games, and it’s not that I don’t understand the principle, it’s just that my perfectly mannered Southern mother drummed into my head at a very early age that calling a man for a date goes against nature, a tenet to which I can’t make my friend adhere.
And oh, the convenience of my Southern superstitions, they set such wonderful parameters. You’d never catch me with a hat on the bed, an opened umbrella in the house, spilled salt on the table (for I have now perfected the discreet, left shoulder throw), nor would I consider starting the New Year without laboriously cooking black-eyed peas the real way. Although I’ve patiently explained all this to my husband, I’m not convinced he truly understands, but he’s a Yankee from Chicago, God bless him, and I decided long ago to forgive him.
I’ve been a transplanted Southerner for so many years that I’m used to it, and believe me, I don’t look around California for any support. Luckily, I have a bevy of girlfriends down South whom I call when in need, and I promise, I had reason to call one of them anyway-- it wasn’t just to tell her that I went to a luncheon last week, where the hostess wore an after-five, cocktail dress with cleavage down to there. But it set off fifteen minutes of unbridled laughter, not that I meant to be vicious. It’s just that my childhood friends and I have a certain sense of humor that we employ as a way of being in the world. It is insular, tacit, and immediate. It’s a secret that binds us and reminds us of our place in the world. I make no apologies for this, nor for the fact that I have become a walking Southern cliché; you can take the girl out of the South and all that, but I can go one better: I’m actually proud to be a Southerner, and when in doubt of life’s paradoxes before me, there’s a little tune that resounds in my head that sounds a lot like whistling Dixie.

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