Life - grace grits and gardening

I prefer Delta Graffiti over the other sort

July 15, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

I prefer Delta graffiti to typical gangster graffiti. Delta graffiti is clear and to the point. Easy to read.

Really, it can be considered true signage.

Words to the wise.

Country song lyrics.

Yes, it may be grammatically incorrect, but still, there are no confusing symbols.

Plain, simple, countrified.

Delta graffiti.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]I prefer #Delta graffiti over the other sort. #WordstoLiveBy [/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues

my Southern Heritage

July 12, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

Whoa, everywhere you turn people are talking and arguing about the Confederate flag. Many want to erase it from history. Others are wrapping their bodies in it like a beloved blanket. Southern heritage means different things to different people. No matter how much ranting and protesting one way or another, people will NEVER see things exactly the same way.

You probably knew it was only a matter of time before I had to throw my two cents in about southern heritage. After all, my blog includes grits in the title for heaven’s sake. Southern? Why yes I am.

But the Confederate flag is not a symbol of my southern heritage.

My southern heritage includes the people and places and family traditions that shaped me.

This land at our home place, once swampy and snaky, land that my grandparents and great-grandparents cleared, this is my southern heritage.

Land rich in history.

This is the place I return home to as often as possible—the place I can breathe and remember and just be.

This field was (is) my playground.

My sister and I spent countless hours zooming our Matchbox cars between the furrows of cotton that by August grew thick and high above our heads. We hunted for tadpoles and turtles in the ditches and made mudpies on steamy summer days. We rode our John Deere bicycles to the far edge of the property where the earth seemed to curve. We chopped cotton with the farm hands.

My southern heritage includes priceless black and white family photos and stories passed down for generations.

A wooden box of old family recipes, the handwritten cards smeared with oily fingerprints and smudges of chocolate.

My church home filled with memories I can recall more clearly than what I did last week.

My southern heritage includes the small Delta towns that will always be home to me, and Old Man River which roils nearby shaping the very culture of this place.

The truth is, racism isn’t my story. I’ve never been denied anything because of my race. My ancestors who hailed from Tennessee and other points below the Mason-Dixon line likely fought against the abolition of slavery. They probably even owned slaves. Although I’ve never researched my ancestry, I doubt my people sat in the back of the bus. So who am I to say the rebel flag isn’t racist to those whose ancestors were slaves?

I am reminded of the wise words of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s iconic book To Kill a Mockingbird. “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Since we can’t literally climb into someone’s skin, maybe all we can hope for is tolerance. As a society we’d do well to remember that everyone’s story is different and worthy of consideration. Even those completely unlike our own.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I gotta believe that down deep where we all live, we are more alike than not.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]My #Southern #Heritage is #Delta farm land. @ArFB @ArWomenBloggers @farmpress[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:

American Kids, Kenny Chesney

Dear July,

July 10, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

My friend Sarah Shotts, who blogs at A Love Letter to Adventure, inspired me to write this post Dear July. During the month of July, Sarah is video journaling in a series called Letters to July. I encourage you to check out her blog today. She is doing innovative, creative work not only with her July letters, but also in Project Stir (her global recipe project). Since I haven’t yet mastered the nuances of videoing (aren’t you glad? ha!), I decided to write a letter to July the old-fashioned way with pen to paper (then reproduced here, of course).

So, corny or not, here we go…

Dear July,

It seems as though I saw you only two or three months ago, yet here you are again. Somehow another entire year has passed. I have a confession. Did you know I love and hate you all at the same time? It’s true. I’ve thought about it for a long, long time.

July, you’ve always shown up bringing a bundle of my favorite things…family vacations, juicy watermelon, and a blue sky filled with lofty clouds. Even with all these wonderful gifts, the truth is that sometimes, most times, you are steamy and unbearable and I want you to disappear into a cool autumn breeze. But not this year, not so far, at least. This year I wouldn’t recognize you at all if not for the flicker of lightning bugs outside my kitchen window.

In case you’ve forgotten, today is my birthday. Today I turn fifty-three years old. That’s another reason I’m quite fond of you. Doesn’t everyone love their birthday month?

I’m not sure how I blinked and became fifty-three, but I did. And I’m not complaining. It’s a privilege, really, this aging thing. For whatever reason, many folks don’t get the luxury. Anyway, I thought you should know, I’m grateful for the memories so far—I hold them close and revisit them often like an old favorite book.

If you think about it, we have quite a history—fifty-three trips around the sun together is an impressive distance for someone who doesn’t like to travel all that much. Happy birthday to you and me and cheers to our next journey around the globe. Let’s try to enjoy more of the moments and remember they aren’t infinite. You order up the yellow sunshine (not too terribly hot, please), and I’ll bring the sunscreen.

And wine. There should be wine.

Your friend,

Me.