Southern Lady Code

Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis
2019
Weight: 16 oz
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

I have been feeling under the weather since Thursday.  I looked up a Southern way to say that and was reminded that "under the weather" IS a Southern way to say that.  As is, "Sick as a dawg."   One I apparently felt the need to use with animal rescue folk.  There were times when I considered, "On death's door"or "I'd have to feel better to die," but death gets closer each year and no longer seems like something to through out flippantly, though I can tell you I thought a lot about death.  Not, in that I thought I would die, but thinking of those we love and their deaths.  What is the most painful it gets?  Will I have to know?  Will my loved ones?  Do any of us mean anything in the continuum?  There are twenty year olds who die of the flu.  Thirty year olds that wake up next to a deceased spouse.  It is unbearable to dwell on and so we try not to.  I try not to, but for how long?

Anywho, that is enough of that dreariness for now.  I am sure it will return.  Today, I am giving away Southern Lady Code, which I bought at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, GA (which I love).  I have a love/hate thing for all things Southern, which is really the only way to love the South reasonably, I think.  We have a dark, sad history, but we also have a lot of really strong, amazing people that have overcome, fought peacefully and hard, worked hard, shown bright.  There is a lot to love.  Fried okra, Flannery O'Connor, Angela Davis, Y'all, peaches, waterfalls.  

Helen Ellis and I had a very different experience growing up in the South, but I could see elements in there.  She was from Alabama and ended up in New York.  I was in Georgia and ended up in Georgia.  It did not bring me all the joy I had hoped for, but I know there are many ladies out there (many of them that I went to college with at Agnes Scott) that would find much to laugh about and relate to here.  I hand it off and hope it finds one of them.