Mississippi girl in an Oregon World

                         I am a Mississippi girl living in an Oregon world.  Just ask Facebook.  Recently, on my Facebook news feed there was an advertisement designed especially for me: a t shirt with the words Mississippi girl in an Oregon world. I guess nothing gets past Facebook. 

I live in Portland, Oregon where the motto is Keep Portland Weird. I was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, where my family there scratches their head at a city that actually wants to be weird. Say what? Oregon and Mississippi share some things in common: friendly people, natural beauty, and good food; but they are really so dissimilar they may as well both be from another planet.  One is the most religious state in the US and the other is one of the least religious.  One is casual and anything goes and the other is formal dressing and fancy manners.  One is blue and the other is red.  I could go on, but you get the picture.

2013 marked the year that I have officially lived longer outside of Mississippi than I did in it, which means two things: I'm really getting old, and my accent is really only detectable after drinking a glass or two of wine, or when I am cheering on the Ole Miss Rebels during football season-nothing like a little Hotty Toddy to bring out my Southern roots.  For those of you who are now lost, Hotty Toddy is an Ole Miss cheer/greeting that goes like this:

Are you ready?

Hell yeah! Damn right!

Hotty Toddy! Gosh Almighty!

Who the hell are we? Hey!

Flim Flam, Bim Bam!

Ole Miss, by Damn!

We teach our children to say it is as soon as they can talk.  My parents taught us to say “Who the heck are we” and “Ole Miss by George” until we were old enough to say Hell and Damn, which I’m pretty sure is when we actually went to Ole Miss as Freshmen.  And no one ever says God Almighty.  Duh.

My accent may not be as thick as it used to be but I still say y’all, all y’all, fixing and might could and might would.  Sadly, I stopped calling all soft drinks Coke a while ago and refer to it as soda, to which my grandmother always promptly asked in confusion, “Baking soda?”  My mom does not like that my daughters call Coke, Sprite, Fanta, etc. soda, but what is an Oregon mom to do?  Oh, I know the answer to that question, not give her daughters soda at all, but that is a whole ‘nother story. 

My parents really dislike my daughters saying yes, no, and the worst, yeah.  I’m a grown woman and I still say yes mam, no mam, and yes sir and no sir to my parents when I’m home in Mississippi.  It just doesn’t work up here in Oregon.  People kind of look at you funny and suspiciously, like you are being sassy, not respectful.  Hence, I never taught my girls to say it and they stick out like sore thumbs when in Mississippi. They don’t say mam and sir, they don’t wear bows bigger than their heads in their hair, and worst of all, they don’t say y’all.  That was actually hard for me to type.  How is it my two daughters don’t say y’all?  It almost makes me feel like I’ve failed as a parent.  However, they do love sweet tea and Chick Fila, so maybe there is still hope!

I moved away when I was 21, spent a decade in the Mid-West, which never felt like home, and have now settled in the Pacific Northwest.  It is far away from my family in Mississippi and the South that I love, but I’ve grown to love it here, too.  I’m not a Keep Portland Weird kind of person, I do live in the suburbs after all.  However, the weirdness here resonates with me because I always felt different and a little weird growing up in Mississippi.  I was into books, not sports.  I was socially awkward in school, overweight and unsure of myself.  I was a late bloomer, and never really blossomed until I moved away, which I attribute more to age than geography. 

Here is the story of my life: I never fit in 100% in Mississippi and I don’t fit in 100% in Oregon.  One of the beautiful things about life in my 40s is that I’ve made peace with that.  I will always be overdressed, over friendly, and just over the top in general in Portland.  I will always be too liberal, too irreverent, and too much like a Yankee, in Mississippi.  I’m too much or not enough.  Yes, I’m a Mississippi girl in an Oregon world.  I’m both/and, and I really like it that way, except for when I don’t, but I’ll save that for another day.