I know I am a Southern girl. I find more peace with trees and lakes than in tall buildings and busy sidewalks. Now don't get me wrong, I like the city. I was born in Houston and I was raised in Houston and I do love everything that the city has to offer BUT when I am seeking peace and tranquility it isn't the city that provides it for me. I think like most Southerners I also have this deep seeded love of home. When I was starting my undergrad, way back when I was 19 (I took a year off), I went to many college campuses and for the most part as soon as I stepped on campus and walked a bit I would get a feeling as to whether I belonged there or not. Seriously, I got a gut feeling and I went with it. My Dad took me to a bunch of different campuses, I think he was living out his college dreams, that he wanted me to think about going to and among them were some great schools. However, the moment I stepped foot on the campus at Sam Houston State University I KNEW deep down in my soul that I was home. I knew that was the campus, the school that I should go to and I did. It was the only one I applied to and when I got in I was so happy. The trees, the size, the small town surrounding it, just everything about it invited me in and showed me that this was the place for me. I never for one moment of my three years on Sam's campus regretted it. I made wonderful life-long friendships there. I got a top-notch education and in general had a fabulous time at school.
So fast forward 8 years (after graduation) and I was again contemplating schools. Now I had enjoyed my time so much at Sam that I didn't exactly graduate with a stellar gpa and I was clueless what to do when I graduated so I just got a job. So here I was, about 8 years later at a cross road in my life. I knew in my heart that the job I had was not where I wanted to be in twenty years, I had passed up an opportunity to move up at work because I knew that I didn't want to stay....BUT what did I want to do? Well, I went back to school. I knew I couldn't get into grad school because that gpa just wasn't great. So I decided to get another undergrad degree. I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do and I bounced around some with the degrees but took classes online. After a few years I finally decided to get on with things and I had settled on a degree (English) so I was once again contemplating colleges. This is a much different concept when you are 35 than when you are 20. I thought about going back to Sam and I even applied and was accepted but I knew that I would never be able to recapture what I had there when I was 21. So instead, I applied to the University of Houston and have spent the last three years taking classes online.
Now I have been on campus a time or two but I never really had the opportunity to get a feel for the campus. Those visits were mainly hurried and done with a specific purpose and then I left. However (and I swear I am getting to the whole I am a Southern girl thing), last fall I was at a point that I could no longer take classes online, I HAD to go to campus. So with the support of my awesome bosses, I signed up for classes on T/TH mornings. Last fall, I finally did get more of an appreciation for the campus. I had some quiet mornings, sipping coffee and listening to the water in the fountains but the weather wasn't always welcoming and I spent more time inside than outside. There were other factors that played into my state of mind last fall that also effected how I felt. So now I have reached the point. This spring semester is my last at UofH, I graduate in May. A multitude of things have changed for me in the last few months and I am in a better frame of mind mentally. So finally I can look at the campus with new eyes. Throw into the mix that the weather has been getting steadily better around here and well it allowed me for the first time to see and feel my campus. It inspired me to write what follows. This was written Thursday morning, 3/20 at about 10 am.
In all my time of strolling the pathways of the campus I had never heard the tolling of the bells on the clock tower. The seclusion and serenity of the inner campus is remarkable when you think it is surrounded by the fourth largest city in the country. As the clock began to play and then the bells began to relay the hour the sound seemed to seep into my mind. Glancing around at the grandeur and grace of the old trees I began to have images of a small Southern town, oaks as old as the South draped in Spanish moss, women in rocking chairs sipping sweet tea from a mason jar from their front porch, children running barefoot trying to catch lighten bugs, and it suddenly felt as if for the first time the campus was showing me this is home. This was the choice that I was supposed to make for this part of my story. Funny that it took this long for her to welcome me but she did it in such a spectacular way today.
Those images of Southern life my sound like clichés but they really aren't. These are images I remember from my childhood. These are images that are still played out in small towns all through the south all the time. These are the images and all of the smells and sounds that go with them, that speak to my soul in a way that few other things can and ever will. I know that no matter where life may take me, this place, these images, these people will always be home.
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