Georgia On My Mind
I was outside a few nights ago walking the dog and carrying an empty laundry basket, multi-tasking and thinking.
It was very hot. It was close, like they say in old novels when the character is describing the kind of weather where there is no air, only water. Mugginess. It was dark, and quiet on the street, the crickets and cicadas making the loudest sounds.
"I've been here before," I thought. "This feels like a different place."
I was thinking of Georgia, the unlikely state that has held so many of the most important and formative moments in my Midwestern life. It was so hot there that your arms were always damp from the close air, and you could take deep, gulping breaths and still feel winded. It is like the heavy night-times held my memories, suspended them, and they are still there, in the air on those nights that feel like Georgia.
I've been awkward in Georgia, I've been enamored, felt like I was in love there. I've been heartbroken and enlightened in that lovely state. Frightened, disappointed, exhilarated, empowered, fulfilled. I've felt my heart beating in ways it never beat before. I've cried, I've laughed. I've felt alive.
And all the feelings I've ever felt in the most Southern place I've ever been come rushing back to me on nights like that. Looking out at the greenest forests I've ever seen. The darkest, loudest, most fragrant nights.
I can pluck my memories out of the night sky and hold them in my heart for a little while. And feel lucky, to have been in those places that led me where I am now, happy and challenged and feeling so very, very good.
It was very hot. It was close, like they say in old novels when the character is describing the kind of weather where there is no air, only water. Mugginess. It was dark, and quiet on the street, the crickets and cicadas making the loudest sounds.
"I've been here before," I thought. "This feels like a different place."
I was thinking of Georgia, the unlikely state that has held so many of the most important and formative moments in my Midwestern life. It was so hot there that your arms were always damp from the close air, and you could take deep, gulping breaths and still feel winded. It is like the heavy night-times held my memories, suspended them, and they are still there, in the air on those nights that feel like Georgia.
I've been awkward in Georgia, I've been enamored, felt like I was in love there. I've been heartbroken and enlightened in that lovely state. Frightened, disappointed, exhilarated, empowered, fulfilled. I've felt my heart beating in ways it never beat before. I've cried, I've laughed. I've felt alive.
And all the feelings I've ever felt in the most Southern place I've ever been come rushing back to me on nights like that. Looking out at the greenest forests I've ever seen. The darkest, loudest, most fragrant nights.
I can pluck my memories out of the night sky and hold them in my heart for a little while. And feel lucky, to have been in those places that led me where I am now, happy and challenged and feeling so very, very good.
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