Christmas In the Deep South Continued: Maybe I Am a Snob

During this holiday trip the smallness of my hometown struck me like never before. I had experienced a similar feeling in 2003 when I returned from my year of study abroad in Paris. Of course at that time I was also dealing with the culture shock of returning to the States just when I was beginning to feel at home in Europe. I remember getting very frustrated one evening out to dinner at Applebee’s because my main course was brought out mere minutes after the arrival of our appetizer. I cursed the waitress under my breath but, like a peaceable Pisces, smiled and thanked her. I shouldn’t have expected anything more from a chain that attempts to duplicate the neighborhood bar experience all across America, but I still felt the need to explain to my friends that in France we would not have been asked to order the entrée until we had finished the appetizer. I should have stopped there but couldn’t resist pointing out that in French the appetizer is actually called the entrée because it begins the meal and what we call the entrée is dubbed le plat, the main course. I was dubbed a snob just as I had been warned by previous study abroad students. It was not my intention to come back with my nose in the air, but my enthusiasm for simply discussing cultural differences came across as pretentious. I finally learned to keep my mouth shut and my observations to myself. Doing this allowed me to fit in, and very few people realized that I was a Pisces out of water.

This trip home last week allowed Aquarius to experience for himself the way I felt back in 2003. Everything in our hometown seemed so bland. Shreveport is a decent sized city, but yet there is very little culture. After Paris, I somehow managed to look past the lack of theaters, museums, and fine dining and to settle down for five long years. I only stayed because Aquarius was there, but now we both question our decision to remain in a place that seems like a vacuum – void of cultural intensity. In DC I can go to a ballet whenever I want, visit a hundred museums, and eat any kind of ethnic food under the sun. DC reminds me much of Paris with its low buildings, monuments, parks, and frenzy of cultural activity. Right now I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I always felt very trapped and isolated in the South. Aquarius now realizes that he did as well.

I feel guilty, but going back made me realize that maybe I am a snob. It was hard not to look down on people who think their city has so much to offer because another old cotton field has been cemented over for another strip mall. I do honestly feel bad for being an elitist, and I wish I could relay some story about how I was knocked off my high horse by some good natured, small-town redneck, but no such luck. Instead, this status was only reinforced by everyone assuming that Aquarius and I “aren’t from around here.” I don’t know if it was the knee-high leather boots I wore, our lack of southern accents, or a general aura of East Coast, but everyone from waitresses to salespeople seemed to have us pegged. I never had much of a southern accent. I attribute this to having a very articulate lawyer for a father as well as to my linguistic year in Paris. Aquarius has always had less of an accent than most Southerners due to speech therapy as a child. It seems that we both shed any remnants of a drawl once we moved away. In the eyes of our hometown, we are Northerners. This time around I didn’t censor myself, and I didn’t bother to notice if anyone thought me arrogant. That probably makes me a snob, but now that I am back in DC I just feel like an average Pisces. I am back where I belong.