West Virginia, the Land of My People...

My Dad sent me this picture yesterday to show how beautiful home is. How beautiful it has always been, really. I miss those mountains terribly. They really are like the embrace of a mother that will always be there to comfort you. Sometimes those arms smother you, sometimes they hide the ugliness that happens when people are isolated and far too sure of their power. I am a realist, I've never lied about the problems the state faces, but I also know how wonderfully breathtaking the place is beneath the ugly.

Mired in religion, stereotypes, and poverty the land of my people has always been a joke. Some still look down on people born there, sneering at them with plastic smiles of condescension before they realize the person they are talking to may just be far better educated, well-traveled, and experienced than the typical mountain girl whose never seen an iPod or knows what the Internet is. Because we do have those things there now.

The outside world that could only send yellow journalists, gawking do-gooders intent on saving the hillbillies from themselves through Jesus, and television crews with snickering reporters looking for the worst houses to take shots of is finally making inroads into a place that refused to fall into line. Not through the works of kindly folks bent on bringing light to the darkness, not through education, and certainly not through television. Word of mouth from those that escaped the clutches of our eternal mother wasn't enough to draw out all of those steeped in the importance of being mountain folk, oh no.

It took the Internet to do that and it is casting its spell. People are now looking around and saying, hey, I want that. Hey, I want to go there. I want to post every detail of my life to social media because everybody else is doing the same. Sign me up for some of that. I'm not sure this emergence is really a good thing.

Because it is the land of my people. For all the crime, the poverty, the drugs, the absolute cruelty to people and animals, this is the land that sparked the birth of a new state. This is the land where brothers, fathers, and uncles, fought against each other in a civil war. This is where a man named Mathias Harmon settled and created life, towns, and memories that are long forgotten. This is where I was born, where my heart longs to be, even when I'm laughing with friends in a small cafe in a European city. I miss the land of my people.

I miss that blue ridge of mountains in the distance when I'm on top of a mountain, or the never-ending darkness of being in a forested valley in winter, where the sun rarely shines and the snow piles up. I worry about people giving up and selling out to coal/gas/timber companies that only want to flatten the land and leave an ugly scar. I worry that I'll go home one day and those blue mountains in the distance will be gone, that the people I know will have moved on so that they wouldn't have to witness the destruction of such wonderful beauty. I worry that things will not change at all, and 20 years from now, the only ones left will be too fragile to protest water and air pollution.

Yes, there are many jokes about West Virginia and her people. I've heard "why do birds fly upside down over WV? Because it's not worth shitting on" so many times I can almost tell the point the person makes the decision to repeat it to me. I can also tell when they get offended because I didn't laugh. Why would I? How could anyone have the memories I have and not think the place is worthy of far more than it's given credit for? It's a hard place, a place that can tear you down and break you, if you let it. But, if you remember who you are, and where you're from, it will give you a backbone with the same strength of that blue-ridge of mountains in the background. You can go anywhere with that knowledge. Even home one day.