Sweet Home Alabama

Circling for a landing at the airport of the town where I grew up always gives me the same lump in my throat. If you haven't seen it, you would never believe the clay dirt could be so red. I feel like I have this iron-rich soil running through my veins, and I realize it's true: you can take the girl out of the South, but you can't take the South out of the girl.

The older kids have come with me to celebrate Thanksgiving with my grandparents, and my brother and his wife will arrive soon, too. A real family homecoming. Family is what brings me back over and over, but I have to admit the countryside calls to me, too, in a way it never did when I first left for California twenty-five years ago.

The changing seasons, the cotton fields, the magnolias, the biscuits with ham and red-eye gravy, the slower pace of things, and the genteel way of most Southerners -- I miss them all; they're part of what makes me who I am. And while I wouldn't trade the life I have now, it's good to know that whenever you really want to, you can go home again.