One can’t much help where she is born. It’s a complicated arrangement generally controlled by a nine-month time frame and a mother’s geographical choices of where to live.
I was born in Raleigh, N.C. My mother, a North Carolina native from Alexander County, moved to Raleigh to attend N.C. State and stayed in town after graduating. My father, raised on the south side of Chicago, moved to Raleigh after law school. They met at a party, eventually were married, and I came along a few years thereafter. Mom says that Dad had to go out to walk the dogs on Halloween and, having seen trick-or-treaters, declared he wanted one of his own. I arrived in July.
Four years later, our family moved to Western North Carolina. With our Polish last name, we stuck out a bit among the Bullocks, Bumgarners, Cagles, Owens, and Queens. All too often we were asked the accusatory question, “You ain’t from around here, are you?”
{module Share this!|none}Over the years, where one was “from” grew more complex in meaning. It wasn’t enough to have been delivered in the local hospital. One’s parents needed to have been born there, and ideally, one’s grandparents too. Without this lineage, one remained an outsider, and I, with few memories of Raleigh and no extended family in Jackson County, didn’t seem to be from anywhere at all.
Being excluded, I excluded myself. Whenever asked where I was from, I replied, “I live in Jackson County, but I was born in Raleigh.” It was a disclaimer. A quantifier. If the locals didn’t think I was one of them, then I didn’t think I was one of them either.
It wasn’t until time to go away to college that I realized that I was going to miss the place. I knew the back roads. I’d seen the change from a town with two stoplights to a town with a Super Wal-Mart. The first time I came home from Chapel Hill, I was in awe of the mountains, which I imagined as giant sleeping dinosaurs.
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Absence was what finally determined where home was for me, where I was “from.” I no longer hesitated to answer questions as to my origin with the fact that I was from the mountains. The response confused most and generally required an explanation including, “Well I was born in Raleigh, but I grew up in Jackson County.”
Over the course of my 32 years, I’ve spent all but nine of them in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I married a Bumgardner (but with that “d” in there, he’s from Georgia). I know what the sky looks like when it’s going to snow and how to ride a horse. I’ve drank moonshine on more than one occasion and welcome a plate of pinto beans, collard greens, and cornbread. I know my trees and flowers, get annoyed with big city traffic, and own a hound dog. It may have taken a journey to get here, but I’m from here.
This edition of Smoky Mountain Living is focused on the journeys we take and the ways to get from here to there, wherever that may be. It’s about what we leave behind and what we discover along the way to where we’re going. I hope you enjoy the trip and that you too come to find yourself here.