roots.

Yesterday, one of the sunniest spring days we have had thus far, I found myself behind the wheel of my poor car, driving through the country with the windows down. I was with my brother, someone who is faraway and close, always. We were talking about circuit training with weights, and how much I love running, on a mission to attain cowboy cut wrangler jeans from Wal-Mart. They were for him, not me. 

We laughed about how things change. He used to wear Abercrombie, and I used to go to school with hot-rollers in my hair. I no longer fix my hair, and he only wears $22.99 Cowboy Cut Wranglers from Wal-Mart. 

I told him how, when out with friends the other evening and being entertained by someone else's jukebox choice, I surprised them by knowing every word to the Shania Twain song carrying us through our conversation. "Man, I feel like a woman"...

I make fun of my friend Mary, on a regular basis, for listening to country music. She grins each time I get in her car and it's on one of those stations because she knows what's coming. 

Though I say it's growing up and changing, and that some things we just grow out of, a good portion of me has tried to forget that part of my life. And judging by the fact that I know all of the words to a Shania Twain song, a country singer that came along much later in my life, that part of my life lasted for a long time. And it began early. As a little girl of five, at possibly one of the most pure and innocent seasons I will ever live through, I wanted to be a country singer. I wanted to stand on the stage in the gaudy western wear and belt out twangy tunes.

And the thing that I am thinking about all of this has little to do with country music and more to do with the parts of our lives we try to forget, reason away, or cover up with a newfound "good taste in music".

Truthfully, from a young age, I felt at home in the city. The tall buildings, the traffic, and the lights were sources of comfort, despite the rural surroundings I was nurtured in. I felt early on that the city was really where I belonged, and that I was supposed to have been born there, really, but some angel somewhere got his sexless wires crossed, and I ended up, accidently, in the sticks. I wasn't bitter, but rather managed to maintain a constant intention to return to the home I had never been. This may have something to do with why I have been trying to shuck from me this country husk that seems to stay planted at my heels, no matter how long it's been since I have entertained myself with a country tune, or filled my plate with cheesy potatoes and fried chicken.  

Reality, though, is something I am a big fan of. And the idea of forgetting something or being ashamed of something that's inevitably and inextricably tied to me makes me more uncomfortable than living with, being at ease with, dare I say, thankful for the country-ness I came from.  Today, I am paying homage to my country roots, and the parts of 'em that are still tangled with whatever new growth I got going on inside.

Yee-Haw.