Homecoming.

When I'm home in Mississippi my dreams are more plentiful and more vivid than when I sleep anywhere else--my real home. It doesn't take much to bring the place, and those years, to mind--the smell of honeysuckle on a sunny afternoon, the sound of a football game blowing through a screen-door, the taste of cat-head buttermilk biscuits, or the ticklish feeling of new grass the first day it's warm enough to go barefoot.

But as much as I miss it going home to Mississippi is always a bittersweet experience. I look forward to those heart-leaps of recognition of a person or a place long unseen, and I dislike those heart-drops of things changed, a person deceased, or the profound recognition that I can never know Mississippi as deeply as I feel it.

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During a recent springtime visit, we drove from Mama's home in Florence to my father's home in Starkville, passing through the scarred, rolling landscape where new construction revealed the red Yazoo clay of the area--that hard-packed earth that stains white Keds and makes planting a chore. Mama was telling my daughter Grace about the Choctaw Indians that live in the area, describing the beautiful baskets they make and their annual cultural celebration. I asked if the Neshoba County Fair was still held each summer and she replied, "Oh, yes. It's a big deal for folks in this area, even if it is in the hottest part of the year."

Suddenly struck by the fact that I've attended neither the Choctaw Indian Fair nor the fabled House Party, I thought, "How can I call myself a Mississippian if I've never seen these things? If these events are meaningful to people in my home state, shouldn't I know more about them?" Immediately, I wondered if there was any way possible to get back home in July to enjoy these local extravaganzas.

And there are those familiar experiences I'd love to share with Grace and my husband David--the parade of boats dotting the Gulf during the blessing of the fleet; the Mississippi State Fair, where you can eat the best white taffy made on earth; the Chimneyville Crafts Festival, where the most talented artisans of the Southeast (including my uncle Jan, a potter from Gore Springs) gather to sell their wares in time for Christmas; and the spring pilgrimage in Natchez, where one can sense the romantic side of the antebellum South.

It was my longing for a job in the film industry that took me from Mississippi to California for graduate school. My career in animation gave me a lovely adventure in Orlando, Florida, then moved my little family of three to our current residence in Burbank, California. It is now my husband's career in post-production and film-scoring that keeps us here. California is a wonderful state, but I cannot imagine ever calling myself a Californian. No matter how long I'm away, I will always be a Mississippian.