By Rachel Lord Elizondo
I come from a place of unforgiving red clay. A place with red dirt roads winding through the flat land, rows and rows of pine trees on either side. So many trees it makes it seem as if the road should never have been there at all.
I come from a place where summer is not summer without a slice of watermelon. Watermelon that’s been cooling on an AC vent all afternoon. Where fall is not fall without that earthy smell of peanuts being dug up.
I come from hot afternoons spent on my grandaddy’s farm — my cousins and I fishing with old cane poles, pebbles of dog food on the hook as bait. Where the day ended in barbecue that had cooked for hours. Where we spent nights playing cops and robbers under the pecan trees and among rusty farm equipment. Where the ride home was spent scratching at new mosquito bites.
I come from days spent in an overgrown backyard, sidestepping metal bottle caps and broken glass with my bare feet. From a house that did not belong to us. A small three-bedroom that held eight people with at least two or three more always coming and going. Where my mother and siblings and I escaped my angry father - at least for a while. Where we were lucky to have ramen noodles, or spaghetti made with ketchup, or squirrel to eat.
I come from parents who divorced. Who only got back together because they could not pay their bills alone. Parents who filled our home with the sounds of their arguments. Parents who could not seem to escape their past — the times they cheated on each other, the bruises my father had left, purple and black and green, on my mother’s skin. All their mistakes.
I come from my father’s people. People with olive skin, hazel eyes, and unattached earlobes. People who worked the land, their only livelihood. Who spent their days picking tobacco and peas, weeding fields, stacking watermelons in trucks to sell, and slaughtering hogs.
I come from a childhood spent outside, working and playing. The air hot and humid. From days picking peas. Days when I could not wait to get inside, where my family and I could bask in the cool air conditioning. We would dump our five-gallon buckets full of green and purple rippled pea pods onto a threadbare towel in front of the hearth. We spent our next few days shelling the peas until our fingers were raw. But at least it was cool.
I come from a place where rattlesnakes are as long and thick as your leg and nearly as common. Where alligator snapping turtles big enough to eat dogs float in ditches. Where herds of wild hogs with tusks as long as your forearm roam the woods.
I come from the land of the pines. Where even the pines too big to wrap your arms around, even the pines too tall to see the tops of, are overtaken by kudzu. The unruly, untamed kudzu making the woods behind my house resemble forgotten ruins on another continent. My brother and I its explorers with each rumble and sputter of our four-wheeler.
I come from a place where high school is not always seen as necessary. A place where poverty and getting married at 19 is normal. A place where everyone can name at least a few people they know who killed themselves, even more who overdosed.
I come from a place full of people who always talk about leaving. People who end up living in a trailer just a few miles from where they grew up. People who never really got the chance to leave at all.
I come from a place where the only thing connecting us to the rest of the world is an Interstate that cuts right through our land. Instead of seeing the pines and the fields and the red clay and the people who just want a chance, people see signs for overpriced gas and strip clubs and fast food. They think that is all we are.
But my father’s people were also storytellers. His father and his father before that worked the fields during the week and told the story of God and his creation on Sundays. They talked only in jokes, songs, and stories. My father was too much of a sinner to be a preacher, but he learned how to captivate an audience. I have read too many books to count and sat in countless writing workshops, but still, I have never met anyone who can tell a story like my father. And so I come from that, too. And I come from a place that needs to have its story told.
Rachel comes from a small town in South Georgia and has been writing her entire life. She has worked as a journalist and freelance writer, and she is currently at work on a memoir called "Three Napkin Roses." The memoir tells the story of her journey as a writer and finding her way back home. She lives in town not far from where she grew up and works to shine on a light on her rural home through writing.
