My Southern Home, Anywhere, U.S.A.

"Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of." --Anonymous

Southern Living magazine has been a staple in my home for nearly twenty-seven years, much to my husband's constant irritation. He doesn't object to me having the subscription; he objects to my need to save almost every issue! I have rows of back issues on bookshelves, baskets of them next to the toilets in the bathrooms, and various little stacks of them scattered about the house. I keep folders full of recipes I've torn out (some of which I actually try, but mostly just drool over) and I have a fat folder called "In Our Next House", where I've pulled out pages of decorating ideas to use at some point in the future, probably. I am also inclined to pulling out a recipe and stuffing it into a random cookbook in the hope that I'll open that book on a day when I'm ready to try something new and find the little treasure stashed there. My husband grumbles less about this now than he used to, finally giving in to my addiction, although when we move, he growls about having to lug heavy boxes full of them up and down stairs, and reminds me that one day it will totally be my fault if his back goes out! I just give him sugar (i.e. lots of kisses) when he gets all grumbly, which makes him smirk but press on. Thankfully, his back is still holding up and he loves me!

My love affair with Southern Living began in the Spring of 1989. We were stationed at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, and I was powerfully homesick. Kansas looked absolutely nothing like North Carolina, felt completely different from North Carolina and you couldn't even order a glass of sweet tea if you went out to dinner. Their idea of sweet tea was packets of sugar on the table!  I missed home so much that our phone bill was quickly getting out of control. In an attempt to assuage my homesickness, and regain control of our finances, I bought a Southern Living at the grocery store (per Mama Schaefer's recommendation) and when I got home, curled up on the sofa to read it after putting away all the groceries. Among the pages, I found a treasure trove of green and flowers, flora and fauna that were familiar to me. There were recipes that reminded me of how home tasted on my tongue, and decorating ideas that made me feel warm and settled inside. I decided to try not only the recipes, but also to duplicate the "look" I found within those pages inside of our own little apartment, a habit I've continued to build on ever since. On our meager budget, I didn't master the looks I'd seen in the magazine, but I did find my own ways of recreating them that made me finally feel like I was "home".

My husband retired from the USAF in May of 2012 and we moved back to our hometown in North Carolina. Even though we are once again in the same place where we began our marriage, my addiction to Southern Living has not abated, although I have learned how to part with many of my back issues, even if it pains me to put them in the Recycle Bin. I still tear the recipes out and enjoy reading advice from The Grumpy Gardener (even though my husband is the one with the green thumb in our household). The decorating tips seem to get better every year, and I jot down events and travel destination recommended from each issue, in the hope that we will actually go to them soon! My favorite part of the magazine now, however, is the Southern Journal articles at the end of each issue that are written by Rick Bragg. I find his humor delightful, his memories about his own southern childhood often similar to my own, and his voice comforting, like my favorite pair of bunny slippers. In the February 2014 issue, which I saved because it was the same month that we lost Mama Schaefer (who shared my addiction for the magazine), Mr. Bragg talks about "The Color of Words", referring to the interesting colloquialisms we use regularly in the South. He says, "...the real color and warmth in us, as a people, is not in the landscape or the sky but in our language, the way we lean words against each other...we are the best-spoken people on Earth...in the pictures we paint and hang in the air." This makes my little writer's heart melt dreamily, as I rip out the article and tuck it into another notebook!

*Image from www.etsy.com.

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