Southern Legitimacy Statement: The South is the smell of my mom in the kitchen making biscuits before anyone else is awake. It is the earth under my bare feet, transporting me back to days spent in the creek, not minding the copperheads a mile back. The South is my body—an everpresent reminder of what it means to be home.
Lost Lines
“Momma, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
The dishwasher had just begun its washing cycle, filling the kitchen with the sound of circulation. Lost in thought, Elizabeth almost didn’t hear her daughter’s question.
“Well, Nina,” Elizabeth said slowly, “I guess I wanted to be lots of things.” She reached for a dish towel to dry her hands, then turned to face her daughter. “But what I really wanted to be was an actor. I took voice lessons, I performed in a few small plays at school—I even saved up to attend an acting camp. I really thought that was going to be my life, my future—but life doesn’t usually work out how we plan it.”
Elizabeth could smell the old classroom she used to practice in, dust accompanied by the hum of fluorescent lights. She could hear the traffic passing by outside on Highway 25. She could taste those old lines she spoke as Lady Macbeth, remembering how alive she had felt onstage. She couldn’t quite remember all the lines, but felt her mind reaching. Her heart picked up.
“Are you sad you’re not an actor, Momma?”
Elizabeth knew she was facing one of those moments where a parent must decide how honest they are going to be with her child. How much of the truth are they ready for. . . how much are we ready for them to know?
“Yes, sometimes.” She walked over to her daughter and sat down beside her. “For a while, it was the most important thing to me. But then other things became important,” Elizabeth looked at her daughter and felt full of warmth. “It’s okay to feel sad about things not working out the way we thought they would, as long as we also appreciate all that we do have.”
Nina lit up. “Like ice cream!”
Elizabeth chuckled. “Yes, like ice cream.”
Nina looked up at her momma. “Maybe someday I’ll be an actor, and then we can go to my movies together at the movie theater.”
“If you want to do that, then you can. The most important thing to me, Nina, is your finding the thing you love to do as much as I love acting. . . and you do that, no matter what.” Elizabeth kissed her daughter on the forehead while standing. “Why don’t we go watch a movie before bedtime?”
“Yes!” Nina bounced up from her seat and ran to the television to turn it on.
“You find a movie while I make us some popcorn,” Elizabeth said.
“Okay!”
Elizabeth rummaged around in the kitchen to find a bag before throwing it in the microwave. The sound blended in with the dishwasher in the background, curating the perfect white noise for Elizabeth to get lost in. In a whisper, Elizabeth recited, “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” She giggled, remembering, and reached up for a bowl to dump the popcorn in.
