Mississippi

 

 

These days, when I think of Mississippi, I get inundated with memories. Some come in images: the blaze of orange in a country sky at dusk; the way you can see the summer heat coming off the roads; pine trees and lightning and gravel. Some memories come as sounds: cicadas and the croak of frogs; low groans from cattle; the hum of tractors and the distant shot of a gun. And still, some come in pieces I can’t quite put together: the feel of my bare feet running down the driveway with only the moon to light my path; the way he said “home,”; the feeling this wasn’t mine.

I spent the first eighteen years of my life in Mississippi, in and outside the city of Jackson. My parents, unlike many of my friends’ parents, did not have roots in Mississippi. They’d moved a few years before my sister and I were born, for my father’s job.

We weren’t your “typical” Mississippians. We ordered meatless Happy Meals from McDonald’s and lit incense next to our Advent wreaths. We were a blended family, Indian and American, but not Southern. We didn’t say “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” at home, only in public. We didn’t hunt or watch football or go to church on Wednesday nights.

I don’t know when I started noticing these things. Maybe there was always a sense of being different, but I wasn’t aware of ever wanting to belong more, until him.

He came into my life right before senior year, and over time I’ve realized his arrival coincided with a fear of leaving home. The push to grow up, to leave what I’d known—it tangled itself in with him. He was a literal, tangible representation of Mississippi, where I’d grown up. I clung to him to try to hold on to my past.

He said his vowels slowly, drawing them out like I’d always wanted to. He wore camo and baseball hats and chewed tobacco behind my back. He spent his summers playing baseball and his fall weekends cheering the Rebels on in Oxford.

We were somewhat of opposites: he, a star athlete; me, a character on stage. His power was his charisma and charm; mine, my creativity. He bounced from girlfriend to girlfriend; I considered him my first true relationship.

We met, of all places, on a farm where we volunteered as camp counselors. That summer, I started laying down roots in that land. Pieces of me settled into the hay, the barn lofts, the creek beds. Parts of me sank into his drawl, his callused hands, his farmer’s tan.

I spent the next year shedding layers to grow into new skin, a skin I hoped would make me belong.

I stopped writing at night to spend hours with him. I gave up weekends talking to the stars to try on lent camo and hold the barrel of a gun I never planned to use. I bought red clothes and painted my lips to blend into the sea of Ole Miss fans in September.

I tried deer meat and red beans and rice. I drank tea with too much sugar and sat burning my thighs on bleachers at baseball games. I wore his jersey on Friday nights, symbolizing I was his. I started peeling away parts of me—like my Indian heritage—replacing bangles with the cross necklace he gifted me.

I started anchoring myself to Mississippi through him—sensing his loyalty to the state despite what he’d say about wanting to try something new. The promise of staying young, not growing up, lay in the tangled web of him and my home state.

So, when the reality of college drew nearer, I let go of my dreams of moving to California, and set my sights on Nashville, instead. I didn’t want to go to an in -state school, but I wanted to be close to him.

I remember many drives back and forth, Nashville to Jackson, the songs I’d play on repeat as I burnt miles down I-55. I felt myself losing him, losing Mississippi—and it made me grip harder, drive faster. I’d left bits of me back in those fields, in the winding backroads, the curves where we’d made promises to each other. Every visit home became a chance to find those parts again, and I found them in him. The pull was so strong it made me blind to the games he’d play, the ways he’d use me. But I needed to feel that reminder of what had been home. I needed to know I wouldn’t lose it.

But sometimes the things you hold on to the hardest are the ones that most easily slip away.

I lost him more than once. In big and small ways. At a homecoming game—someone else wearing his jersey. And then again, years later, on I-55: an accident that made me realize he didn’t need me the same way I needed him. I lost him slowly and quickly, fully and haphazardly, the same way I’m losing my idea of needing to belong.

I’m realizing I can have Mississippi the same way I can have memories of him—good and bad, growing pains and growth spurts. I can let go of the masks I hid behind and peel back the layers of myself that lie beneath the surface. I can forgive the moments I thought I needed to be something else, and the times I used him to try to hold onto my childhood. I can replace my memories of lightning with memories of mason jars filled with lightning bugs, their light illuminating the darkness of my backyard. I can replace my memories of loss with memories of new beginnings.

These days, when I think of Mississippi, I sometimes think of him, too. I think of the ocean of stars we’d look at while sitting on his trunk bed in Benton. I think of the gravel roads we drove on, talking about our dreams and everything in between. But I also think of the stars I’d watch on my driveway, alone. The gravel roads I’d run on, dreaming of where I’d end up, the places I’d see, and who I’d become. And I know, despite everything, a part of me will always belong to Mississippi.