Who is this girl?

Oh yeah, she used to write that one blog. Didn't she die or something?

No, for real, when I tried to get on to post this entry, for about 30 seconds I couldn't even remember the name of my blog. And that's just sad. But, hey, you all know me. Who's surprised?

And let's be honest. We're never going to get through what happened in London, or what happened on summer tour. It's the day after Christmas, for crying out loud. And I refuse to feel guilty. What I do with my life is, let's face it, just not that terribly interesting. I'll write whatever I feel like, and not worry about updating my loyal readerbase (seriously guys, I think you're taking optimism just a little past its reasonable limits) about my goings-on. Not that there are, you know, goings on. It was just an expression.

Wanna read a poem I wrote? I just dug it out of my purse when I was cleaning it out looking for my debit card this afternoon (I found the card, btw). It was inspired by a chance remark made by Andy when we were in Georgia about growing up in the south.

Way back when wafts through me
Like the scent of dogwood trees in blossom
Hanging on the breeze to settle gently
In my nose
It clings to me like the smell of barbecued ribs
Smoky and overpowering
It follows me like my mother's perfume
Lingering in a room long after she's left

Way back when tastes like sweet tea
Slipping down my thoat like children's cough syrup
Thick with sugar and southern hospitality
It sticks in my teeth like the pulp of a peach
And coats my tongue
With the buttery sweetness of a pecan pie

It is moistened in clear streams
(where frogs jump)
Baked in the hot Georgia sun
Set in the cool shade of Magnolia trees
It softens me like a boiled peanut
Left soaking in a pot
Way back when flows over me like sweat on a summer day
(it's not the heat, it's the humidity)

It is the rust red of Georgia red clay
(the color of all my socks)
And shaped like the dusty paths
That drew me into the woods
(beyond myself)
It is green
Creeping over me like long strands of kudzoo
Reshaping me with unrelenting longevity
It is fuschia
Lining my roads with unexpected vividness
Like the flowering trees that border Highway 75

Way back when breaks through the noise of after
With the songs of before
Patsy Cline and Reba McIntyre
And the drone of insects on a still night
The belch a bullfrog
And the bleat of a fawn--discovered
Only if I walk softly
(and alone)

The Smoky Mountains stoop down
And flatten themselves into an
Endless
Expanse
Of cornfields
But I remember how they looked
Through twelve-year-old eyes
And I can still see them
(touch them taste them)
And Georgia is still there
Where I still smell her hear her
(know her)


Yeah, can somebody end this for me? I suck at ending things. My endings are somehow even more sentimental than my beginnings.

That's poetic.