urSkek (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} urskek) wrote,@ 2004-04-25 16:59:00 |
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I'm in Louisiana. My papaw (mom's father) died last week. I haven't been home in seven years. He never even met my children. I'm having a hard time with that. My dad (who lives here, too) sent his wife, Terry, to pick me and the kids up from Houston so I could go to the funeral. We're on day 5 of a 7-day stay.
There's so much to write about that I will need to break it down into bits and pieces. For now, the thing that is consuming my mind is how people here are so different than they are anywhere else in this US, even the rest of the south. Louisiana is like a different country, the culture is so distinctive. This is truly part of the Bible Belt, too. All but two of the radio stations here are Christian-oriented, and most of the billboards have something to do with church. My dad is the pastor for a nondenominational church called The Church. We went to the service this morning. I let me kids go to children's church and do the craft. I listened to my dad do his preacher thing. I feel proud of him, even though it's not my thing. He's a happy man. Much of his congregation are bikers, and his co-pastor and his wife have nine children, all of them homebirthed, breastfed, slept with, from age 22 down to 2. She hugged me really hard when I first met her the other day and talked about how she'd never met anybody else who did things the way she did them, people always telling her she's crazy. That was so cool, to meet someone like her here.
I've seen five out of my eight brothers and sisters since I've been here, and aunts, uncles, cousins I haven't seen in years. They all have done nothing but fawn over my children and love them (sometimes traumatizing them with overbearing hugs and kisses, but loving them nonetheless). Amazingly, no one has given us the first bit of shit for the vegan thing or the nursing thing. These people love me so much, and I think I had forgotten that. It feels good to be home, but I cannot wait to be back in my own space, my own bed, going by own schedule.
I'm not in the right head space to write about my papaw yet.
There's so much to write about that I will need to break it down into bits and pieces. For now, the thing that is consuming my mind is how people here are so different than they are anywhere else in this US, even the rest of the south. Louisiana is like a different country, the culture is so distinctive. This is truly part of the Bible Belt, too. All but two of the radio stations here are Christian-oriented, and most of the billboards have something to do with church. My dad is the pastor for a nondenominational church called The Church. We went to the service this morning. I let me kids go to children's church and do the craft. I listened to my dad do his preacher thing. I feel proud of him, even though it's not my thing. He's a happy man. Much of his congregation are bikers, and his co-pastor and his wife have nine children, all of them homebirthed, breastfed, slept with, from age 22 down to 2. She hugged me really hard when I first met her the other day and talked about how she'd never met anybody else who did things the way she did them, people always telling her she's crazy. That was so cool, to meet someone like her here.
I've seen five out of my eight brothers and sisters since I've been here, and aunts, uncles, cousins I haven't seen in years. They all have done nothing but fawn over my children and love them (sometimes traumatizing them with overbearing hugs and kisses, but loving them nonetheless). Amazingly, no one has given us the first bit of shit for the vegan thing or the nursing thing. These people love me so much, and I think I had forgotten that. It feels good to be home, but I cannot wait to be back in my own space, my own bed, going by own schedule.
I'm not in the right head space to write about my papaw yet.
