My tiny niece calls her little brother, “Buddy Fish” sometimes. Well, she calls him Buddy and naturally his last name is Smith. But when it comes out, it sounds like “Fish”.
Here, lies the legend of Buddy Fish. 

Actually, there’s no legend. I just thought it was really funny and one of the most [for lack of better word] precious things I’ve seen in a long time.
Like…when they hold hands in the back seat or smile and laugh.
[and when they scream…how it somehow itches the inside of my brain. :P]

- - - - -

Feeling that Mississippi wind is truth. 
It’s what my skin is made of and what my tongue speaks from time to time…
It’s real and hot and full of little brown spiders. 

I miss it and wonder if it’s getting more “countrified” or if I’ve just been away for a while…and truth is, I’ve just been away for a while.
And sometimes, that’s sad. To know something so deep, and at the same, have it seem so unfamiliar.
Like walking into the best hole-in-the-wall joint and having people look at you like you’re some foreigner. “I grew up here…” I want to say. “I sang at this church and spent most of my free time doing nothing on these streets!” 

But I’m different, unlike that cheeseburger that’s been the same price since 1961. 
Not to mention, when it’s topped with chili and roast beef. 

Sinful isn’t the word for something that good - maybe I’ll take it the other way around and call it heavenly.
Yep. Heavenly. 

I think about the rivers I live on now…the mountains I can see from the bridges I cross everyday and think about the coupons at Claiborne Hill and the old church where my Grandad rests..

Breath, laden thick with sweet gardenia and that warm sun that shines on my shoulders, I recognize that this place has shifted in my head - how I see it is mostly the same, but a little blurry - a little rearranged and on the move.
For the folks who live here, it’s nothing really. 

So it goes when you move from place to place…
You take notice of change…both internal and external - both processes a little uncomfortable, but familiar. 

Thankful for a sweet place to come home to and rest my head and sip a little tea that makes my tongue pop off the roof of my mouth…

Thankful for those little hands and the newest character of our family…Buddy Fish.