"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us" -- Joseph Campbell

So I've been back in Alabama for about 3 days now, and everytime I venture off my quaint little cul-de-sac I'm reminded both of why I love Alabama, and why I will not be moving back here, for a while at least. Here are a few little snapshots of both:

• I wheel my car into the small strip of parking in front of one of my new favorite stores: Initial Impressions. It's a monogram shop. That should be enough said there about why I love Alabama. But I look over to my right and adjacent to the monogram shop is a wine tasting shop where couples are sitting on the patio enjoying the sticky-sweet afternoon, in no hurry to be anywhere. Love it.
• Continue on my way toward town intent on getting the winter salt and spring love-bugs scrubbed off my car. I enjoy my cruise through the carwash, thinking about what the three different colored soaps actually do, and how I used to be deathly afraid of carwashes as a child -- sobbing uncontrollably from the back seat of the station wagon. Pleasant enough this time around. But then I get to get out and wait on a bench while they vacuum. And that means enjoying the company of every red-neck and their brother sitting around me. A middle-aged woman in 8 inch wedges and a low-cut tank top with badly-hidden bra strappage was indeed a delight to observe. The blonde, weasly-looking young man wearing a wife-beater had absolutely amazing "hocking and spitting" talent, post-cigarette. I know there's trash everywhere, but I forgot how much more prevalent it is here.
• On my way home from mass, I drove down Government Street towards the historic district. I couldn't help but notice the gigantic, elegant oak trees that shade the entire street -- the limbs of the trees on the south side of the street enmeshing with the limbs of the trees on the north side of the street. Those trees have been there for decades, weathering the coming and going of people and trends...standing strong, roots deep, reminding us of Southern elegance and tradition.
• Driving west, up the Hill, I get mixed feelings. Part of me knows that this is the best side of Southern culture, and at the same time, it doesn't feel like it used to. Large, gracious homes represent the old blood and old money that flows through this city. Family names mean everything. Growing up, I always saw myself here, working with the Junior League and doing philanthropic things with my husband's money, when I wasn't decking my children out in hand-made, monogrammed bubble-suits. But now, I begin to feel like I could never be that woman I used to think about when I was younger -- I could never settle to live this life, where ideals seem shallow and achieved dreams seem ultimately unfulfilling.
  

Three of my friends are flying to Africa today. Africa. It is a completely different world than the one I know. When I see the pictures people send back from their experiences in the Third World, I can't help but think to the images I have in my mind of the life I planned for myself for so long -- the big, white Suburban to haul my well-dressed children to their prestigious private school. I know that that's not really what I want now. I don't know what the new image should look like. What is the life that is waiting for me? Yes, I want to raise a strong family, yes, I want them to have the privledges I've had, yes, I want them to wear monogrammed clothes, gosh-darn-it, but there is something more that I want....that I have yet to figure out.