Yazoo Paradox

(April 7, 2008)

The Yazoo City into which I was born was (and continues to be) a paradox. It is where the flat, rich soil of the Mississippi Delta meets the rolling hills of central Mississippi. Perhaps no other place is so bifurcated: hills and delta, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, State and Ole Miss, white and Black, past and present.

It may be because my childhood home sat upon the fault line of all those paradoxes that I make these annual pilgrimages back home; trying to resolve the opposing forces that shaped who I have become after almost sixty years. This recent trip home did little to resolve the paradoxes, except confirming I must simply accept them. The further I venture away from Old Yazoo, the closer it becomes to me.

Visits with classmates Ardis Russell and John Evans gave us a chance to bridge the past and present. K.K. Hill, whose visits have become a most refreshing must, else the trip would be inadequate, continued to fill my arsenal with stories; should I fulfill my threat to write a sequel to “The Kudzu that Ate Yazoo City”. (If so, it will be entitled, “The Catfish that Ate Yazoo City”.)

But the main purpose of the visit was to see Mother and family. Mother’s recovery has been nothing short of amazing. Thanks go to all of you for your prayers on her behalf. The family reunion included 30 or more of Mother’s children, daughters-and-sons-in-law, grand and great-grandchildren. The recollections, family legends, and laughter did all our hearts well, like a medicine, just as the Bible says.

It was too early to see the beautiful Orioles, who return to Linda’s bird feeder as faithfully as the swallows return to Capistrano. But I was able to attend worship with Mother, Linda and Marietta’s family; had the honor to speak at the Christian Men’s Lunch; and do my best to eat every piece of catfish placed before me. It was a wonderful trip back in space and time.

As the years accumulate, I worry less about the paradoxes; accepting both myself and others for who we are; and enjoying the delightful differences that make us fully human…and therefore capable of loving and being loved.

From the Quote Garden
“"In the South, the breeze blows softer...neighbors are friendlier, nosier, and more talkative...This is a different place. Our way of thinking is different, as are our ways of seeing, laughing, singing, eating, meeting and parting. Our walk is different, as the old song goes, our talk and our names. … What we carry in our memories is different too, and that may explain everything else."
~ Charles Kuralt "Southerners: Portrait of a People”