I could see it was raining, but I did not know how hard the rain was falling until the door opened. I turned around on the stool and saw an older man enter the Waffle House. “How’re y’all?” he said, not to us, but to the waitress behind the counter. I instantly felt that I knew this man.
He was dressed peculiarly. He wore a leather bomber jacket and a print shirt. On his head he sported a white boat captain’s hat, all mashed and rumpled. Covering the embroidered anchor on the front was a shiny 5-star General of the Army insignia. On his hands he wore a number of large, ornate silver rings, and from his neck hung a pendant that was not too manly, not too feminine. He sat right down and accepted the coffee the waitress handed him. She already knew what he wanted for breakfast and put in the order without even asking. He produced a paperback from under his arm — Clive Cussler or Brad Thor or a writer in that vein — and began to read.
I had been back in the South less than 24 hours and already I knew by signs such as these that I was home. Not simply because what was common was familiar, but also because what was eccentric was accepted.
My wife and I lived out West for a while. Wyoming at first, then we tried Arizona (very) briefly. We had always said we could see ourselves in the South “one day,” but we wanted to try as much as we could in the West, to see if it was really for us. For a whole host of reasons, mistakes, roadblocks, and probably a healthy dose of providence, we ended up leaving and returning to the South.
I will discuss this more in the future, but Out West (as I like to phrase it) things are quite different from the South. There is much, much more individualism Out West. It’s unavoidable. You are really on your own much of the time. There are far, far fewer people and unless you grew up in a Western community, you are very far from family and friends and it is difficult to make new ones. Certainly there are those ranchers, farmers, and small-town folks who stick to the same place, but the ebb and flow of people through the West is one of the most incredible things I have seen. It does not happen in long wagon trains or on chuffing trains; it happens singly and quietly, but nonetheless people are constantly moving, setting up life again, then when things fail, moving on again. Even in this modern age, the basic nature of the West has not changed.
Yet despite this individualism, you do not get a sense of individuality being characteristic to the West. You certainly get your fair share of wild folks, crackpots, fringe dwellers, and the salty characters who march to the beat of their own drum. I’ve met a lot of them. But these extreme examples almost seem to confirm the rule, which is that everyone is on their own and thus everyone is seeking to define themselves somehow, someway. You have to make yourself into something, all on your own terms, and you have to do it all the time, because there isn’t much else for you to draw upon. Everyone is free out West, but it doesn’t mean they necessarily have self-realization in that freedom.
But seeing that quirky old man in the Nashville Waffle House, I realized that having a cultural and societal core actually provides the possibility of genuine individuality, of eccentricity that isn’t simply wild personal whim. There is a way things are in the South; you can embrace it or you can reject it, but that’s how it is. What many outsiders (and many disgruntled, alienated Southerners) think is that by embracing this status quo, you are conforming, and by rejecting it, you are liberating yourself. But it’s more complicated than that. Because a status quo is not one thing. And in the way it relates to identity, a naturally developed, shared way of life can provide multiple sources of identity. In such a schema, there is no single definition of who you are and you may feel a part of different identities to varying degrees. You may indeed add one of your own, that of the Waffle House-General of the Army-Boat Captain variety, or the erudite man of letters variety like William Faulkner, or even the small-town redneck turned liberal rock ‘n roller like Drive-By Truckers. It does not necessarily mean rejecting outright the whole way of life you come from, even though it may mean you choose your own personal expressions, habits, sartorial choices, friends, or values over other markers of identity considered more typical or traditional. Sometimes even embracing tradition puts one at odds with the status quo. But what is certain is that all of this takes place within a given cultural and societal context. Whatever one’s personal choices, one is never left completely isolated from others. One never has to define by sheer will one’s entire identity. And thank goodness, because that is too much for anyone. It leads us to deformed character or to simply accept whatever neatly packaged identity is offered to us.
There is much I miss about the West and much I am ambivalent about in my home region. But it is for certain that I feel perfectly capable of being who I am here. I do not have to constantly mend the fences around my own identity, fences which even when tautly strung still let the gusts of confusion and self-doubt in. Here at home, I know how things are. I am free to enjoy it, to complain about it, and to get on with the parts of life that are important, whether they are congruent or at odds with the way things are. I know that, regardless, I will never be outwith; I will belong.