I grew up here..

I grew up here- where we draw the state line on the street because it's the only tourist attraction. Where Appalachia meets the dirty south. I grew up where the whole town goes to the Friday night football game, everyone knows someone who still makes moonshine,  and the homecoming queens will have their 3rd baby before their 5 year reunion .  I grew up in the land of Sunday hymns and Saturday night dirt tracks.

And I never planned to leave.

10 year later....
just north of the hip-hop capital of the world.

I have a degree in Spanish and spend most of my day teaching (unbelievably priviliged) high school students the value of  a foreign culture.

I am head-over-heels for a Taiwanese man, totally enchanted by his family, and attempting to learn mandarin.

 ...and I have had the great blessings of hiking the Jamaican jungle with machete wielding tour guides,   falling in love with  a baby honduran monkey, accidentally finding myself in the middle of a Spanish labor rally, and dancing with the rural Scots on New Years Eve.

I am a cultural cocktail
                     a student of every place
                                              and very much still finding my way.