If you have been keeping up with Lucky Girl Seeks Lovely Stuff then you have a basic familiarity with my roots. One part city girl with three parts country girl. While I have never lived in the big city, most of you have probably recognized that I have an acute obsession with the idea of living in a real city and throwing myself into a mass cosm of retail. I have dreams of wearing black sunglasses and scarves and galavanting in the streets, drinking coffee, shopping for couture, and carrying a big, beautiful, very expensive handbag. This is the small city girl part of me. It is what it is, a dream. My pocketbook hardly allows for couture or a big expensive handbag, and only skinny people look good galavanting on the streets of NYC with coffee and big sunglasses.
The largest part of me, finds solice in the lifestyle in which I was raised. I hail from the great state of Kentucky, the bluegrass state, horse capital of the world, the home of ale -8, slawburgers, and bottles of ski. I always imagined that once I left, I would not return. There had to be a much better life waiting for me far away from Kentucky. However, it wasn't until I left (we left) that I realized how much Kentucky was a part of me.
I have tried to explain to many. It wasn't until this weekend, that I found a Kentucky author who took the thoughts right from head and put them on paper. If you know Kentucky, you probably also know Wendell Berry.
"On the other hand, I knew I had not escaped Kentucky, and had never really wanted to. I was still writing about it, and had recognized that I would need to write about it for the rest of my life. Kentucky was my fate- not an altogether pleasant fate, though it had much that was pleasing in it, but one that I could not leave behind simply by going to another place, and that I therefore felt more and more obligated to meet directly and to understand. Perhaps even more imporant, I still had a deep love for the place I had been born in, and liked the idea of going back to be part of it again. And that, too, I felt obligated to try to understand . Why should I love one place so much more than any other? What could be the meaning or use of such love?"
1 comment:
That hit home here too.....i have lived in Nebraska, Minnesota, Georgia, and now Kansas, and none are Ky....I wonder if those from other locales feel the same affinity for where they come from?? or do they just put something in our drinking water that makes our hearts bleed blue??
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