My Images of the South
Although I was born in Georgia at DeKalb Medical it was not always my home. At five my family moved to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and we stayed there long enough for my parents to divorce and for my conscious memories to begin forming. I have little memory of my life before Pennsylvania, but since we returned only four years later it has always been perceived by those who meet me that I should know Georgia, that I should know the South. But my images of the South come from a cloudy infant memory and every experience I have had returned to my home.
Paved roads are my first image, whether they are charcoal black and smooth to the touch or heather grey and cracked in hundreds of pieces. The South I perceive has lengthy paved roads that lead you in various directions. Always will there be a paved road to take in order to reach your destination. It was the miles of paved road that followed me from Georgia and the same roads that lead me back again. The pavement roads are a passage for those coming to Georgia in search of better opportunities or those who wish to leave. These paved roads also connect people to people and can reflect how industrialized just this area of the South is. There is a constant need to pave new roads that will connect the old with the new in the South.
The Sun is another image I would include in an imagist representation of the south. The sun bathes the south and especially Atlanta. When it’s not here we notice and worry, but when it is here we curse the lands that soak up the heat. The sun also consumes the hearts of the southerners since Christianity seems to rule the lands and every street harbors a church of some denomination. Religion is an abundantly public aspect of the South; you cannot escape it any more than the heat the sun drenches you on most days here.
These and many more are the images that construct my image of the South. Although my perspective is shallow compared to the deep roots of the South I reflect a part that has flourished from the Sun’s warmth in the cracks of the pavement and is an important turn of southern history.
Great images here, especially of roads (and what a quintessential image of the city–roads, runways, freeways): “Paved roads are my first image, whether they are charcoal black and smooth to the touch or heather grey and cracked in hundreds of pieces.” Nice.
Paved roads and the sun: both essential parts of the modern South, especially the Atlanta area. However, I relate unpaved roads to the South more so than paved ones. Georgia and other southeastern places are one of the few locations you can still find more than a mile long stretch of an unpaved road. To me, that could be taken as a symbol of slow literal and metaphorical progression.
Interesting images Candyce! I also chose the sun. I see Sierra’s point though, I think your perspective changes whether you are from a rural or urban area. While there was a campaign to “Untie the Knot” in Atlanta, citizens from my hometown campaigned to keep roads unpaved.