City Girl Goes Country

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd have to go to Montgomery, Alabama to enjoy city living. Or that I'd miss the “urban flavor” of life in Madison, Wisconsin.

That is, until I moved to Selma.

Joanne Bland used to say that if I ever decided to work for the NVRMI permanently, I'd have to live in Montgomery and drive to Selma every day. I guess she figured that a girl from Houston wouldn't like life in a small town. Like a good urban snob, I laughed at the idea of living in Montgomery. Yes, it is about ten times bigger than Selma (where the population is 20,000). And yes, it is roughly the same size of Madison. But, let me be real here - compared to Houston metro (population 4 million), Madison and Montgomery just don't fit my definition of urban. Living in Selma, though, definitely changed all that.

If you've read this blog before, you'll know that I do love this place. Selma is beautiful, charming and has the best soul food you will ever eat. The folks down here can burn. It's also home to what has to be the largest concentration of in-your-face activists in the country. Every town could use a Rose Sanders or a Joanne Bland. That's why I come back here nearly every year and I can't see a time when I won't. So, I'm not dissing Selma at all. I like it here! But...it's kinda country.

No, it's really, really country. It's "wearing house shoes to a restaurant" country. It's "driving 90 miles to get to a movie theater" country. The other day, no joke, I was walking down the sidewalk and I accidentally stepped on a pile of chicken wing bones. They were just lying there in the middle of downtown Selma. Country.

Now, being country ain't a bad thing. It certainly has its merits. In fact, playing country can get you elected president - just ask Dubya.

Let me stop here and say that some of y'all might think a person from Texas calling anything country is like the pot calling the kettle black. I understand that and I also acknowledge that some things about Houston could be considered country. I saw somebody wearing house shoes while shopping at Kroger when I was home for Christmas. (Granted, it was a Kroger on the eastside.) And, I do drive a pick-up truck with a longhorn sticker on the back window. Nevertheless, I still bristle when a northerner suggests that I might be country. "I'm from Houston," I always say, like that helps my case. People in Madison probably see me in my truck and assume that my other car is a horse.

During my 10-week stint in Selma, though, I think I've become a little more accepting of my inner country girl. I wrote in my first blog that people we meet immediately know that Jerome and I are not from here. Well, no one has asked me where I'm from in the past few weeks. I'm not sure what that means, but I know it's not because I've met everyone in town. Maybe we've started to blend a little, and maybe that's not a horrible thing.

In the end, adjusting to life in a small town hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be, even though I definitely can't wait to shop at a store that isn't Wal-Mart and I still love our weekend excursions to the city. At the same time, I will really miss life in Selma when I leave in two weeks because it appeals to a part of me that I've spent years trying to deny. So, here's my confession:

I'm T...and I'm a little bit country.