Tuscaloosa Runs This pregnant and unpregnant in it, got Katrina’ed by it, learned to drink and fuck and smoke in it, and as soon as I wed, left it.
140
Those who have assholes for mother-in-laws perhaps wouldn’t understand, but I’ve come to view Tuscaloosa, where I’ve lived the past three years with my husband and dogs, as my mother-in-law land: a new, grown-up place to remake ourselves away from where our mothers made us. Mom-in-law-Sandy, here’s what I found in Tuscaloosa. How to be a teacher. That my students’ rah-rahing about all that is Southern stems not from callowness, or as my mom would say, asshole-ness, but from self-defining—they love their mothers too, and aren’t very far from their motherlands. That eighteen-year-olds rightly speak in their mothers’ tongue, since they have yet to meet their mothers-in-law. How to be a wife. When to pick from the blueberry bushels behind our house, fill three Tupperware bowls and promise a pie. Then, not being the pie-making kind, wait till the next time Brock and I get drunk to throw blueberries in each other’s mouths from across the room, letting the dogs chase down what we don’t catch. That it’s okay to rent, since we own nothing but love for each other. The names of the pink feathery flowers out front, azaleas returning perennially without our asking. Sandy, you really need to visit. Tuscaloosa, just like you, really means it. Tuscaloosa makes me really mean it. As you might say, home is where the home is.