North vs. South

I am the king of hypocrites (or queen, rather.) Each morning, I peruse my favorite and not-so-favorite blogs, sighing and rolling my eyes at those who haven't posted in the last millenia, because don't they know their blogs exist to entertain me....!?! (sound of popping bubble...)

I then realize that I'm the chief of sinners (or chieftess, if you please), because I've been as uncommitted to keeping up my posts as they have! My apologies, yet again...

For the first time since we've been here (Nashville), it's gotten cold. This means about 50-something during the day and 30-something at night. I mentioned to Nick that we left the north 3 months ago...why has it followed us? Up until about 3 days ago, we continued to be spoiled with summer-like weather. In fact, last Thursday, we saw a thermometer that read 90 degrees! I always get a sinister sort of satisfaction looking on weather.com to see that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (my original home) has been consistently about 20 degrees colder than it has been here. When I tell my mom about this, she always says, "But don't you want the SEASONS??" To which I reply, "We still have the seasons...fall foliage is beautiful here! The leaves change into beautiful shades of gold and red and actually stay on the trees for all to enjoy up through Thanksgiving instead of falling off after a week or two."

Another thing we've come to love about the south aside from the spoil-us-rotten weather is the friendliness and hospitality. The underlying criticalness and pessimism which seems to permeate the north has not been found to reign in the everyday attitudes of most people with whom we've come in contact here. It's very refreshing, and it causes us to look at our own attitudes, be humbled, and to desire to slough off our rough edges.

There also seems to be a greater difference between femininity and masculinity in the south. I know I may receive some swift objections to what I'm about to say, but let me set myself up for ridicule anyhow:) I've noticed that men hold doors open more for women, address them as ma'am or even darlin' (..it just means "dear one!" What could be so offensive about that?) It is understood that women will take time to get their nails or hair done more often, as if it is part of a more normal routine than a special occasion. (Okay, here come the protests...) Yes, I understand that manicures and hair-dos do not a godly woman make. No, Proverbs 31 doesn't mention nails or hair (although it does refer to the woman taking time to dress herself in beautfiul clothing). My point is that women seem to take the time to make themselves appear more feminine than I've noticed in the north. In addition to that, it seems as if this is an understood fact of life in the sight of men, instead of rolling their eyes at it or commenting on the silliness of women primping and preening.

I am sure as time goes on, there will be things we miss about the Yanks or our enchantment will turn to disenchantment. No, we haven't developed southern drawls yet, and our nordic, midwestern accents still shine through as we blunt our "o" and "ah" sounding vowels from time to time. We still move much more quickly through traffic and get very irritated in long lines while the cashier is asking about her current customer's new grandbaby. But we can feel the tenseness slowly releasing from our faces and the corners of our mouths lifting a bit more. Yes, our society hates distinction and any distinction that isn't favorable to one side or another will always be looked on as an offense. That's okay. We still love it here, and will probably continue to boast about it for a long while. We know that we're suffering from "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence" disease.
But our grass is still GREEN.