On Sunday, I roll out of bed, still groggy at 10am, to find my parents in the living room. I am relieved to see them in their PJs. This means I don’t have to change out of my own pajamas or emotionally prepare myself for the battle that is walking into Sunday morning church with my parents, fending off their friends at every turn, sidestepping out of conversations about my job and my boyfriend.

In his pressed button-up and gym shorts, my dad says, “It’s almost time.”

My mom walks out of the bedroom in a plush white robe, coffee in hand. “Oh!” She says, and sort of claps her hands together gently, careful not to spill the coffee. She’s happy to see I’m awake.

She joins my dad in the living room, and the music from the live-streamed church service begins on cue. I pour a cup of coffee before sitting on the couch with my dad. The worship team begins singing, “Oh come let us adore him” through the surround sound. My dad takes my dog’s front paws and moves them to the song. "We give him all the glory,” he sings a small voice, as if my 18-lb dog is singing instead.

My mom is in front of us in a swivel chair. With her back to us, she holds her hands up in offering: palms open, eyes closed. This is her normal state when singing worship songs.

At the end of the song, the pastor walks onto stage. He greets the in-person congregation, all of the satellite campuses, and the people watching from home, like us. He tells us to fist bump the person next to us. Without turning around, my mom holds her fist up in the air. My dad holds his up in response.

I sip my coffee.

If it isn’t clear, I’m in Alabama.

—

After a few weeks of annoyingly introspective posts like this one about being controlling and this one on getting older (what’s a girl to do if not self promote?), I wanted to write something funny this week. I wanted this so badly that, in addition to my original “#8: ?” draft, I created another draft titled “#8: Funnier.” Unfortunately, simply titling something “Funnier” does not funnier make.

It’s inconvenient that my brain refuses to be anything but deeply introspective this winter. Unfortunate for my psyche, yes, but also because I spent December in the south, and the south is perfect fodder for humor. Every moment in Alabama that I am not memorizing the conversations around me feels like a missed opportunity. This is not great for my sense of achievement, but it is, like I said, good for humor. Here, people say things like, “Well, doggone honey child,” and name their dogs Curly Bill and Mr. Stubbs (two dogs I know personally). Here, people you’ve never met take your hands in theirs in a public place and cry to you, saying again and again that life is such a gift.

—

I hear my mom in the other room on the phone with her mother. A tornado has just ravaged my grandmother’s neighborhood, trees bent and broken across her backyard. Her iron fence, too, has been smashed. My mom coaches her through a conversation with the workers coming to remove the splintered trees. She deepens her voice.

“Hello,” my mom says.

Silence, then: “No, Mom, I’m the tree guy. Say what you would say to him.” My mom takes a deep breath. “Hello,” she says again.

This goes on for a few minutes before the exercise is abandoned.

I think about the roles of mother and daughter, parent and child. How the roles evolve over time, stretching and snapping like putty.

I chose to spend the month in Alabama at my parents’ because I wanted to see if being somewhere slower and smaller aligned with an internal shift I’ve been feeling. I wanted to see if I’d outgrown my inability to stomach so much of the south or accomplished what I’d needed to by moving across the country seven years ago.

Returning to my parents’ home as an adult is always a balancing act, a frustrating dance between asserting my independence and desiring to be cared for. I think many of us experience this, becoming worse, almost teenage, versions of ourselves when we’re visiting the ones who raised us. One of the reasons I yearned so strongly to get away at 21 was to discover myself outside of the southern confines I was living in. I’ve always had a difficult time growing when watched.

—

It’s the week before Christmas, and my dad and I are carrying my mother’s beautifully-prepared gifts to the neighbors. In my hands, I hold a small box with a Frosty Fern and some jam.

A neighbor is in her yard when we walk by. We say hi, and my dad begins to tell her about the guy who just came by to check our fireplaces. Or maybe he checked the irrigation. I’ve already forgotten. He tells her that she should hire him, too.

“His name is Capers,” my dad says.

“Capers?” the neighbor asks.

“Capers, yeah. That’s the name on his shirt.”

“Capers,” the neighbor says again, feeling it out in her mouth.

“He’s a really good guy,” my dad says after just meeting him thirty minutes before.

The neighbor nods. “Can you believe a mom would name you Capers?”

I feel suddenly defensive of this stranger. “It’s probably a last name,” I offer up. “A family name.”

“Not the things we love so much to eat?” she challenges with a laugh.

I shrug.

“Maybe she ate capers when she was pregnant with him,” my dad says.

“And now he’s a salty guy!” she laughs hard now, all 4’10” of her small body shaking.

I hear a badum-shh in the air between us.

“He’s really sweet, though,” my dad says, careful not to give the wrong idea.

We walk away.

This kind of interaction used to annoy me, these constant conversations feeling like gossip, and I the forced defender of the subject, whomever they may be. Now, all these years away from Alabama, I see that these conversations are really just attempts at connection. Connection that makes me uncomfortable, but connection all the same.

—

At the coffee shop, I talk with a friend about the pros and cons I have of moving back to this small town or another. I tell him that I feel watched when I’m here, that I can’t go somewhere without seeing someone I recognize or vice versa. That I feel held to fulfill the role others expect of me and how stifling that used to be, never quite aligning with the communities I lived among in the south. I talk of how much I love the personal freedom that comes with living in a big city. I love that, when I walk into a store or a restaurant in LA, I don’t feel like anyone cares about me. How I longed for that my entire life, the ability to take on any form at any time, to be loud one day and invisible the next.

But where is the line between sacrificing connection for anonymity and freedom? And in ten years, which will I care about more? The ability to walk into a grocery store in any clothes I please or the inability to walk into a coffee shop without saying hi to three people I know every single time? Could I handle all the microaggressions and judgements that come from strangers at every turn in Alabama—and people I love, too—for constant community with people who know and love me?

There is a way of being known that comes only with people who have grown up beside you and watched you become. There is a clarity—a fullness—to being known this way. This level of knowing is something I will never get in Los Angeles. And, well, I know that.

—

Evan and I walk into a store to find a present for his mother. At the checkout counter, the owner asks me if I live here, saying she can’t place me. I tell her that no, I’m just visiting, but that my mom is good friends with her sister. She asks who my mother is, and I tell her.

“Oh, of course!” she exclaims. “Do you have a sister who lived in China?”

“That was me, actually,” I reply, remembering this thing about myself that I’d forgotten.

“You were there with my son,” she says, and she’s right.

We talk briefly about both of her sons, what they’re up to now, and I’m pulling out names like rabbits from a hat. I’m amazed at all these specifics I can suddenly recollect now that the memories are shared with someone else.

The store owner talks to Evan, too, taken by him as most people are. When we leave twenty minutes later, after tears and recited scripture, I apologize to him for getting us stuck. I ask him how it feels to be forced into these conversations with people every place we go.

He says that it’s nice, actually. That it feels southern and special.

I don’t know why this feels like something I hadn’t considered before. When people talk about southern hospitality, I always imagine strangers holding open doors and servers being kind at restaurants. The idea of southern hospitality has always felt surface level, something I don’t appreciate. I’d never associated southern hospitality with connection or care.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” I say. “I guess it is special.”