Photo by Alysse Gafkjen  

 
 

September 12, 2023

Dear Bitter Southerners,

I’m sitting in the backyard of my Tennessee home, watching the children play in the tire swing. It’s about 7:26 p.m., and I know this without looking at a clock because the lightning bugs have just started blinking at the edges of the woods like tiny pixies using Morse code. Their bulbs flicker like neon signs in the window of a dimly lit bar. Most nights around this time, the sky turns the most delicious pink and blue cotton candy color in the holler where we live. It’s growing dark, and though the actual sundown isn’t until 8, the sun is already sinking behind the ridge. I ignore the mosquitoes thirsting for my sweet blood by moving too quickly for them to bite me. I turn on the hose and get ready to water the garden. My babes come running to beg a drink from it as though they’ve been traveling through the desert for months without water. I oblige and they take a couple big swigs before they go back to the wilderness of our unkempt yard to temporarily house some fireflies in a mason jar. 

It’s these simple things about summer just outside of Nashville that make me love it so much. I still get the same yearning, that same restless feeling, that I did when I was a kid, thinking to myself, “I wish the summer would never end.” For a brief moment, I entertain the wild idea of chasing the sun west to California. I could postpone the fall for another month or so. My son groans, interrupting my daydreams with the same thought, “But Mama, why does it have to end?” 

The truth is, I love the changing seasons. They feel like distinguishing chapters in the book that is my life. They mark important moments from my past, even serving as markers for my soul mate and our relationship. We met in the winter, we were friends in the spring, we fell in love in the summer, and we were wed in fall. Seasons make the time slow down. January chills your bones and July burns you up. Most of the time, time is whirling by like a jet plane. In “You’re a Big Girl Now,” Bob Dylan sings “It moves too fast,” and I tend to agree. I’m back to touring full time as a working musician, and it has my internal clock slightly confused and jumping time zones. By never stopping moving, I thought I could cheat time or maybe slow down my own aging, but here I am, 40 years old in the flesh! 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Some days, I can’t even believe it myself. I’m a busy working mom with a 13-year-old and a 4-year-old. When we tour with the children, I work late nights, but I do my best to get out of bed and get moving early. My mother is 68 years old, and she travels with us to help with the kids. Childcare is so expensive, and it would be nearly impossible to constantly be on the road with this traveling circus carnival if Grandma wasn’t around. (She is our matriarch, and we absolutely could not do it without her!) When I’m home, I wake up between 6 and 6:30 a.m. to get the kids ready for school. After the hour round-trip drive to their schools and back, I spend the day writing songs, playing guitar, or recording in the studio, if I’m lucky. But more often than not, it’s the less sexy work of answering emails, doing interviews, rehearsing, and being on podcasts, phone calls, and Zoom meetings. One thing is for sure: I always squeeze time in for a walk. Some days, I don’t even run a comb through my hair until sometime after noon. 

When it’s summer, I’m parenting 18 to 24 hours a day. You would think I would be champing at the bit to send my children back to school. But this year, I’m dreading it. And what mother wouldn’t be worried when the No. 1 cause of death for children in our country is gun violence? I’m conflicted beyond words. We were promised by Governor Bill Lee at a meeting after the Covenant shooting that there would be a special session held to try to make stricter gun laws in our state, but that hasn’t happened yet. I wish I didn’t have to bring this back up. Hell, I’d rather be writing an essay on what makes a song good, but the editors of Bitter Southerner have asked me to write about what’s on my mind.

I grew up in a rural Illinois town, where many students left the classroom a couple of times a year to go hunting. I know how to properly store and shoot a firearm. I have helped clean deer hanging from the rafters of a garage. I know how to cook venison steak without it tasting gamey. I am from a hardworking, middle-class, blue-collar, 4H/Future Farmers of America (FFA) farm family. I’ve owned guns for a couple of decades now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want smart gun reform.

 
 
 
 
 
 

2023 marks two decades of me living in the South. I love Nashville and Middle Tennessee. I’ve walked the same hiking trails so many times, the dirt and the ragweed pollen and the creek water run through my veins and are in my blood. I have grown attached to the wildlife and nature where I live. I know where all the best waterfalls are. I know the specific point where the Trail of Tears runs through my neighborhood. I know the exact right time to put my tomatoes and okra and collard greens in the ground. I know the names of the wildflowers and the trees. I know the specific week in spring and the secret places to forage for morel mushrooms. I know which species are invasive and which ones are native. I know the calls of the birds — the Carolina wren, the eastern bluebird, the Nashville warbler, the mourning dove. 

How can I send my children back to school when nothing has been done to protect them? How can I continue to live in a place with so much hate toward people of color and queer people and women? How can I use my platform for change when I know the kind of vitriol that comes with being an outspoken woman in this business? How can I risk my fans and my livelihood to stand for the greater good when I know I will be ostracized by many? How can I continue to abide leaders who have become so unaware of what it is people want? But then, just as I’m ready to move west, I think to myself, “How can I leave at a time when my state needs me the most?” 

I can’t. I am 100 percent firmly planted here. I’ve put roots down, and it’s time to water them. It’s time to show up and vote for a new mayor and City Council members who will listen to us when we say, “We don’t need to use taxpayer dollars to build a new stadium. We need more school buses, and teachers need raises!” It’s time to peacefully protest down at the Capitol and sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

It’s time to become more active in your community. It’s time to help the poor and the homeless and the downtrodden. It’s time to become more involved in Moms Demand Action and fight for gun reform. It’s time to create coalitions and donate to the causes that are going to strengthen our children’s future. It’s time for radical empathy. It’s time to shake your neighbor’s hand and have a difficult conversation that might open both of your minds. It’s time to write songs that unite people and spread love. It’s time to grow something in the garden. It’s time to sit down for family dinner and be grateful your loved ones are safe. It’s time to make some fried green tomatoes.

 
 
 
 

Margo Price