Any place I hang my hat is home...

...so long as it lies south of DC. We returned from the homeland around 1am on Thursday after spending way too much time in the Dallas airport. The downside was the very rowdy flight in and out of Dallas with the military men who had gone to NO on leave to party down and had already begun their drunken stupor on the plane. It's only an hour long flight - how can anyone drink that much in an hour? But I digress. The upside of the airport experience was the part where we got bumped from our overbooked flight for a tidy sum of travel vouchers that will surely pay for our flights home for Christmas. Hurrah!

It was seven days of bliss. Borrowed the car from my mom, ate shrimp at whole foods in Metairie, drove to Hattiesburg, gave a recital and was loved up by all the people who I've missed so terribly, went to our favorite pub and ate still more seafood and drank them out of Abita, went to BR and partied not terribly hard but hard enough with Casey and the husbands got a chance to bond over gin while we went shoe shopping, again with the consuming of the yummy food, and then the three hour road trip to Natchitoches.

I haven't been back since 2001 and I can't even express how much good it does to walk around the old stompin' grounds, remember those hot days of early summer and the nights of nearly-escaped expulsion and the feeling of the prickly grass through your sandals, holding hands with my little brother and watching him, so eager to leave, not realizing how eager he will be to visit, not fully appreciating that these years where he has been pushed to expect the best of himself and given the opportunity to explore what he really wants to do will never come again and in the fall, he'll be shoved into classes with the rest of the masses at LA Tech. Nothing against the state university system, I'm a graduate of one two times over as are many of my most intelligent friends and colleagues, but I just don't know if he appreciates how nice it is to be in the small environment, ten to a class, one on one work with the teacher who really cares about you. *sigh* Those were the days, right?

So we ate some amazing food at the Landing, glared meaningfully at Armand's ex-girlfriend/stick insect, and prepared to pack up the last of his little dorm life. Nostalgia is so nice when you're far enough from it to really see it clearly. How much fun we had, careless and so young, arrogant and righteous, flippant and frivolous with our affections and our friendships, ready to stand up for anything or anyone that we really believed in, and ready to take the punishment for not signing out to go and get that Icee from Texaco (in house suspension? you're not serious. don't you have other things to do than babysit me?) as defiantly as I could muster. At least they only caught us once, right?

More road tripping back to New Orleans for the big family shindig on Sunday, visiting with my dear friends and cousins and every aunt and uncle, trying to hug people with crawfish fingers on one hand and a mimosa in the other. THIS my friends is a real family gathering. I miss them so much and wish we could live closer. If only the conservatory would let me take courses by correspondance, I would so be there in a heartbeat. The beignets alone make it worth the trip!
Another recital, more time in Hattiesburg with friends and family, and I remember how much I love being at home in the south. How comfortable I feel just being me, and how nice it is to say things like, "well, we should be there in an hour, order us a couple pounds of crawfish and we'll be there soon." Being able to jump in the car and go eat with my folks - who were at their most ingratiating - and turn down dessert because you know you're going to drink cafe au lait later.
My history is there, and hopefully my future will be too.