True North

I’ve been running away.

Trying to forget who I am. Where I’m from. I’ve viewed a Southern accent as a liability and I’ve taken up home and shop in the North. Mainly cause I thought that was what would make me feel more whole. More worldly, more cultured. Far from home, I thought, is whereI’ll come into my own. But as the winters have multiplied up here, I’ve found that this isn’t my home. There are fine people, to be sure, but there aren’t the manners and the reverence and the taking-time-to-have-a-chat. The things I tried so intently to escape, I now find are not only what define me, but also what give me a moral compass of how to navigate this beautiful earth.

I might stray, but I know on a map just what direction points me homeward.