There’s a job in North Carolina, and I am assigned to it. They allow me a rental truck and, after filling out the requisite paperwork, I hit the interstate. The drive north is saturated in earth tones. The lush fescue grass, the blazing blue sky, the sandy dusting of hair on newborn babes. The colors are vibrant and welcoming; they never come close to offensive. Crayola doesn’t sell neons down in Dixie

The South is such a bizarre region I might have been taken aback if I wasn’t so damn fascinated with the place. You drive through their suburbs and it’s no different from where you grew up. All the old friends are there. Applebee’s. Old Navy. Target. One of the office supply stores that all look the same. The sprawling parking lots, their long, winding arms leading directly to the cozy four-three homes nestled away behind limestone pillars with interchangeable names. Deerfield Manor. Lakeview Hills. Indian Run. Edgewater Estates.

The familiarities can blind you so much that when you finally see the Stars and Bars, it doesn’t catch your attention. The image creeps in slowly. You do a double take and ask loudly to no one.

Was that the rebel flag?

That is one of my deepest fascinations: two competing cultures fighting each other on a daily basis. Only it’s not a fair fight. In fact, it’s like pitting Sonny Liston against Emmanuel Lewis.

Traveling the road north, I recall the imagery that beckons the past. The toothless inbreds sitting on a dilapidated porch. Chain-gangs toiling under the Mississippi Delta sun. A mammy serving corn bread to a large family, all of them wearing overalls. Like my home state, the American South is more of a fantasy land to those outside its walls. Its stereotypes have almost become accepted fact.

People think it’s a joke when I tell them I’ve witnessed a Ku Klux Klan rally. That’s not right, they say. That group died out years ago. The smiles on their faces disappear when I describe the eerie nods of approval from the crowd or the young fans who thought it was cool to get a cell phone picture standing next to the Grand Dragon as he handed out pro-Klan literature.

For a long time I chocked that rally to the Southern hate culture still fed by degenerates to their children and by the local officials who silently agree and look the other way. But it’s not true. Intolerance lives everywhere and regional lines won’t do a thing to fence it in. The Klan’s heart stopped beating years ago. They’re just too dumb to realize it.

I stop somewhere in South Carolina, a state that still flies the Confederate Flag on its capitol grounds. I filled up my tank and bought a Red Bull. The clerk was not white. Nor were many of the station’s patrons. I was treated no differently, something I didn’t think about at the time. The trip had been almost unmemorable because I don’t expect a different culture in the Carolinas. Locals can clamor all they want about territories, but the South is purely America now. Capitalism destroyed those boundaries decades ago.

The few lasting pieces of slavery, of segregation and succession are reduced to curios in tourist shops. Northern visitors purchase shot glasses that claim “The South Will Rise Again.” They return home to show their friends how backward Alabama is. With exception to some incidents, folks don’t even try to erase the Dixie culture. The proud Confederate generals are still lovingly etched, three acres big, in Stone Mountain’s granite face. No petitions are signed, because no one gives a damn.

On the interstate again, I pass an untold bevy of historical markers. Each containing a piece of trivia on the Civil War, they’re more numerous than crabgrass. Some refer to it as the war for Southern Independence. I enjoy reading these little tidbits when I find the time.

Back in Atlanta, the state capitol lawn contains engraved markers retelling the historic battle of Atlanta. The Daughters of the Confederacy take credit for their creation. Dated from 1920, they lovingly paint a portrait of the Southern Alliance as martyred patriots killed defending their homes from a brutal invasion. The arrogance and cruelty of the Federals was confirmed when they turned the city into an inferno. They won but they did it cruelly. They did it without honor. That was their take on it.

Eighty years ago is along time. You’d be hard pressed to find someone now who so lovingly looks back on the war, on the Confederacy. For all the Olympics and the Fortune 500 and the suburban sprawl and integration, Dixie is dead. What’s left is the same strip malls as in Ohio. The same tree evergreens as in Washington. The same rain as in Vermont. The same Wendy’s Dollar Menu as in Nevada. There is the so-called “New South” and then there is Florida. I just call it America for short.

When I arrive in Charlotte, the sun climbs down below the clouds and cools itself to my presence in the Appalachian Air. It feels like warm coals radiating in my face and the washed out horizon suddenly looks soaked in honey and inviting the world to come play in the scenery.

I drive by the massive race track and indulge my eyes at every piece of propaganda. The city is bleached in NASCAR. Stickers. Shirts. Banners. Billboards. Every shop has plastered up a hero. The logos of a hundred companies are distributed whenever a driver is pictured next to his chariot. I circle the track and pass the unmanned toll gates. There is no race today, but one is scheduled soon. Near my right is a parking lot reserved for overnight fans. Their decked-out RVs hum to the sound of televisions as they wait out the starting day. Triumphant flags atop their trailers emblazed with team numbers flap in the breeze. In the ashes of a southern dying culture, here is another being born.

When I’m sad, hurt, confused and lonely, I drive. And when I’m happy, proud, excited and lonely, I drive.

I used to drive the life-tour route. It began with a tour-de-schools, which circled past Sunflower Elementary, Broken Arrow, Trailridge and Shawnee Mission Northwest, making brief stops at Lisa’s candy store, Black Dog coffeehouse and the Johnson County Library. Then, I’d cycle through the boyfriends: There’s where I was first introduced to the “girlfriend” label. That’s the house were Matt C. asked to be my first kiss. That’s where I went on my “first date” — a sunrise Easter service in the park.

Lastly, I’d hit up the family locations: Grandpa’s house, the farms, Haley’s grave. And, if there was still time, I’d spend half a tank of gas visiting each house I had ever considered home: Jessica’s, Libby’s, Cam’s.

But the life tour begins, ends and circles my mom’s house in Shawnee, Kan. Today, I live in Lawrence, about 40 miles west of where I grew up. Today, my default drive runs between my mom’s and Clinton Lake on the west side of town. And today, I hate that drive.

Start out going SOUTH on MAURER RD toward MIDLAND DR.

I’ve made this drive hundreds — if not thousands — of times. First, as a junior in high school, I visited my boyfriend every chance I got. I’d leave school, hop in my car and floor the gas pedal. He’d left for college just nine days after asking me to be his girlfriend, and I wasn’t ready for him to be 45 minutes away (though it only took a half-hour on a good day). We’d climb onto his lofted bunk bed and talk about nothing as he tried to keep me warm without crossing any unspoken boundaries.

Turn RIGHT onto MIDLAND DR.

I made this drive often during the second semester of that year, too. That was when the boyfriend was suddenly the ex-boyfriend and I struggled to let him be a “typical college student.” That’s what he said he wanted, anyway. But still, if he asked, when he asked, I’d be in my car, headed to Lawrence to sip on a hazelnut mocha at an all-night coffee shop. My coffee always got cold while we recounted every detail of our weeks.

Turn LEFT onto I-435

And I made this drive when I moved to Lawrence to suffer through a semester in an all-girls dorm. I spent that semester in jeans and a slowly fading navy sweatshirt and learned that I was allergic to hairdryers and Sex and the City.

Take KS-10 toward Lawrence.

Flashing lights. White-tailed deer. Slick ice and freezing rain.

Darkness.

That drive tears at the edges of a worldview I hold so tightly knit — held together sometimes by the sheer will of avoiding thinking about them too hard.

Hurtful words. Screaming fights. Endings.

Darkness.

Lawrence 20.

Lawrence 12.

Lawrence 5.

And the place where I first considered the idea of love — as I hung upside down in my first convertible, glad both Sam and I had been wearing our seatbelts. And guilty. Guilty of flipping the car my grandfather had bought for me and guilty of hurting her.

KS-10 W becomes CLINTON PKWY.

I drive through Lawrence, a city that’s too small, and too stretched out and that gaps in all the wrong places. And I hate that drive.

I hate driving past AT&T, where I took a dog I don’t know anymore to see a boy I don’t know anymore as he waited in line to buy the first-edition iPhone. I hate driving past the places I would turn to get to apartments I don’t live in anymore and houses I’ll never call home. I hate seeing the sno cone shop where I didn’t even realize I was faking a laugh and smiling a lie on a first date. And I hate seeing the places where Molly and Emily and Lindsay live — places I could have lived, too. I hate seeing those broken contracts and broken friendships.

END Clinton Lake Dam

There are stars here. Stars that exist almost nowhere else in my limited world of north eastern Kansas. But sometimes, at the end of this drive, I hate them too.

Building a house is hard work.

Since I am currently experiencing it first-hand, I would like you to hear the authority in that sentence. It is REALLY hard work. And we all know what words all in capitals mean.

We are building a house. That is, my husband, son and I, and eight other families, are building a house. All of us are planning a separate home inside one house we are building all together, located in the middle of Hamburg. This is, on the one hand, the only way to afford a house in the middle of the city unless you have one of those money machines in your backyard. On the other hand, it’s a great way to build a real, non-anonymous neighbourhood for yourself and your children.

You know what it also is? A pain in the ass.

We have spent the last 10 or so weekends with kitchen planners, floor tile specialists or woodwork people who were, let’s say, helpful to varying degrees. We have had endless and recurring discussions about whether the floor tiles in the (open) kitchen will match the wooden floor in the living room, whether the bathrooms should have large and small tiles all in one colour or whether we’d like some to be of a different hue. We have seen so many different possibilities to tile a floor (most of them so horrible you’d wonder how people can make a living selling them) that we could probably start right from the top and wouldn’t have more of a clue than we have now.

You know how too many possibilities make choice impossible? That’s what’s happening to us. And we haven’t even started on the walls yet, or the interior furniture.

Oh, and by the way: We haven’t really started to build anything yet, either. This is all paper planning. Not a stone has been moved where the house is supposed to be standing in early 2010.

Why am I telling you this? Because this is so intensely annoying, time consuming and hair-tearing that I have deep respect for anyone who’s survived this phase without going crazy. Like my parents, who built a house in the seventies with two kids under 2. At the same time, the prospect of living in our own home with people we love and being able to build this home exactly to our book is so satisfying, full of excitement and happiness that we cannot wait for the final stroke of the paintbrushes to be done already. Which of course doesn’t alleviate the annoyance …

Yes, this will go on for approximately 17 more months. Yes, I will probably be swearing a lot during this time, cursing things arriving in the wrong shape and/or colour and stuff not being done in time. But oh the bliss of sitting on one’s back porch, looking out on the green where 10 children and all their future sisters and brothers will be playing, having a chat with a neighbour I actually like, and generally being content with what I have… I wish it were 2010 already.

Patience is a virtue not easily obtained.

I am very fortunate to have a job I truly enjoy. Having held jobs that I found less than desirable, I have a greater appreciation for the importance of taking pleasure in what you do for a living. I currently am the director of a before- and after-school childcare program at an elementary school (I just started in July), and it has been a wonderful experience thus far. I was teaching and coaching at the middle and high school level, and just got burnt out. So I wasn’t really looking to continue teaching, and when I decided to move to Columbia, Mo., in pursuit of love (my girlfriend lives here) this job just kind of fell in my lap.

It’s great because I am still working with kids, but I don’t have to deal with all of the crap of being a classroom teacher (grading, lesson plans, etc.). It’s more similar to summer camp than school, really. However, one of the best perks of this job is that I come home with the best stories. When you are around 80 elementary school children for several hours each day, you tend to see and hear some funny things.

One kindergartener has a different facial expression for every word in her vocabulary. Cutest kid ever. It’s very subtle, and I’m not even sure she knows she is doing it. It’s not for attention; she is just very expressive, which makes it even cuter. One time I saw her standing up on the stage, addressing a phantom crowd while dressed up as a knight (we have costumes and such for the kids to play dress up). As soon as she noticed that I was watching she kind of walked away, but she started right back up again when I pretended to not look.

Then there is the boy who exposed himself in the gym, probably because he thought it would be funny. He also has a tendency to cuss and hit other kids. I really like this little guy, but we have to have multiple conversations a day about his behavior, and the decisions he makes, which usually result in some “time out.” He always looks so sad sitting in a chair off to the side, by himself. But he’s never mad at me for long, and he even draws me pictures, which my girlfriend thinks is very sweet.

And who could forget the boy who pooped his pants twice…in the same day. I am still trying to figure that one out.

But for all of the laughter and cuteness, there is also a fair amount of tears. Falling and scraping a knee. Getting pegged too hard with a dodge ball in the gym. Or the realization of the unfairness of the world. It is not uncommon to have several criers in a single day. Most of the incidents are so inconsequential that I don’t even remember what caused the crying. Just give the kid some time to calm down, and talk through the issue with them so they feel heard and validated. Most of the time you need to point out it isn’t really that big of a deal, which they may or may not accept. The point is that they learn something, and it is these teachable moments that make this job so pleasant for me.

I had one of those moments a couple of weeks ago, and it is one that I will remember for a long time. I noticed a boy crying; again, not so unusual. However, this was a third grade boy (let’s call him Darin), and someone I wouldn’t expect to cry. Usually one of my staff members will notice these things, and I will only find out if it’s a serious issue. But Darin was concealing it pretty well, so I decided to see if I could help.

“Hey Darin, how’s it going?”

“I miss my mom,” he replied.

“I’m sorry, Darin. Are you feeling OK?”

“Yeah, I just miss her. Can I call her real quick?” he asked, still crying.

“No, buddy, we can’t. She’s already at work getting ready to teach her students, just like your teacher is getting ready to teach you. She will be back at the end of the day to pick you up, though, and you can see her then,” I said, feeling sorry for the little guy.

Not letting him call was the right thing to do, because that would have only made it worse. It still broke my heart a little bit, though. I wanted to hug him and tell him that everything would be fine, and that the journey will get easier as you walk further down the road of life, but that wouldn’t be true (and he probably wouldn’t have had a clue what I was talking about). I can remember several times in my adult life that I have wanted to just sit down and cry and call my mom. There have even been times that I have effectually done that, although not literally, and nothing seems to get better. Independence, or taking responsibility for yourself, is one of the biggest and toughest lessons to learn in life, and Darin took a step in the right direction that day. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation ended, but I saw him playing a game with his buddies just a few minutes later.

The good news for Darin, and for all of us, is that independence does not equal isolation. It’s not that calling his mom would have been a bad thing; it just wouldn’t have been the best thing. I would hate for him to have learned in that moment that his mom is the only person who can make him feel better. He is not isolated and all alone; he has friends and teachers who are on his side and want to help him be the very best he can be. It is in these moments that I love what I do the most. It is also in these moments that I realize that I still have a lot to learn.

I fear bees. I know, few people besides beekeepers and those guys who smear honey on their faces and make bee beards actually “like” bees, rather than just tolerate them, but I fear them. When I was little, I would sit inside during family picnics rather than risk a bee investigating the sweet nectar that was my root beer. Being out in a garden was misery. I learned to suppress the flight instinct as I’ve gotten older, but I’ve replaced it with a coping method that I call “squeezing my eyes shut and sitting very still until the coast is clear.” I’m a blast at summer barbecues.

I don’t even have a legitimate excuse like being deathly allergic, or having a traumatic bee run-in in my youth. I wasn’t stung until I was about 12. I’ve only been stung once or twice since, which I credit to my bee-avoidance techniques. I, on a logical level, am concerned about the recent news stories about whole colonies of bees dying of mysterious causes, but its mingled with a secret sigh of relief that it might mean I’ll see fewer of them flying around.

My fear, for those who know me well, is a source of frustration, as well as mild concern and no small amount of humor. I look funny dodging things the size of my pinky fingernail as if they were Predator drones.

But I’ve worked hard at not letting my fear get in my way of enjoying gorgeous weather, which leads to my friend, his old dog and me spending the day having a picnic in the Colorado sunshine during the last weekend of summer. We packed travel Boggle, paddleball, books and snacks and plopped down on a grassy hill under a tree next to a playground and basketball court.

The day was lovely – I kicked my friend’s butt in Boggle, he kicked mine in paddleball, and we lay down in the grass to read. As he read aloud from his book, I suddenly heard a strange, loud buzzing noise. I looked up, and about 25 feet away, between two trees, was an enormous swarm of bees. I’ve never seen more than a couple of bees together. These moved in a sinister, humming cloud, almost cartoonish in the way they hung together.

My friend, I should add, knew of my fear and had stories of a time in his childhood when he and his friends were chased by an angry, stinging swarm of African killer bees. My God, they’ve migrated to Denver! I imagined bees swarming and overtaking the children innocently playing on the playground.

I jumped up and said a couple of words inappropriate for the playground, and ran down the hill, my sole thought being that if the bees came toward us, I could lock myself in the windowless bathroom. They say that crisis situations are an opportunity for a person’s real character to shine through. I am not proud of this: I hoped my friend, his arthritic dog, and the innocent children would be OK, but my community-loving hippie self had been taken over by a rugged individualist who was going to remain unstung by any means possible.

I stood on edge by the door to the bathroom while my friend carefully and quietly picked up our bags and games and brought them over to where the dog and I stood. We looked back, and where the bees had been swarming there was an eerie emptiness and silence. For all I knew, the bees could have formed a thin line and been lying in wait behind the trunk of the tree. My friend walked back over, and I winced as he shook the branch of a pine tree to see if anything came out. Nothing.

He walked back over, asked if I was OK and gave me a hug. I nodded, and we agreed to move to the other side of the park, jumping a little at each bee we saw.

We picked a hill much farther away, and sat and read and played with the dog, who despite her old age seemed spry as a puppy in her happiness to be outside.

Somehow, that small, easy return to normalcy was just what I needed. My fear was awakened, acknowledged, sympathized with; then we turned our thoughts to the bright sunshine and the good books that were waiting, unspoiled by the swarm of bees. I survived, life moved on, innocent children remained unharmed, and we even treated ourselves to Blizzards from Dairy Queen for surviving the ordeal. My fear, temporarily soothed, retreated for the time being, waiting to rise with a buzz on another day.

I have several friends getting married this fall, and I’m really excited. My one-year anniversary is in November, and I want to tell all my friends about all the fun and the secrets and the joys that happen in a marriage.

I want to tell them how fun it is to talk about your future children, plan dates, slowly build your home and host parties… how perfect it feels to stay up late watching movies and talking and planning.

I never think to warn them. And there’s plenty to be warned about. Your time is not your own anymore… neither is your money, your decisions, your food or your closet. Even your grocery list and your usual house cleaning routine change.

Plus, you have someone around all the time. So those days you just want to have a case of the Mondays and you want to sulk and be grouchy? Not allowed. Cody is great (almost too great…) at calling me out when I’m being completely bratty and immature. In the moment, I hate him and want to kick him in the shins. But I’m grateful he loves me enough to tell me to grow up and live up to my God-given potential.

So while marriage involves big sacrifices, the hard times actually teach me most. I could talk about the happy stuff all day. But the hard stuff is sometimes hard to talk about, because marriage is supposed to be all happy and twinkly and warm and fuzzy… right? Surely we don’t want people to think we are having marital problems (even though every marriage in the world probably experiences a fight here and there).

Recently, Cody and I got in a big fight that changed me. It started over something petty but gradually escalated into hateful yelling and tears on my part. The fight nearly ended with my back to him, trying to go to sleep. We had promised never to go to bed upset with each other, but I kept all my muscles as tight as I could, willing my heart not to bust through and give in. My pride made me shrivel up into a pathetic, pouty little ball and DARED him to give in first.

And… as usual… he did.

And he told me this (and I don’t think I will ever forget it)…We are a team. The least you can do is turn around and look me in the face while we’re working this out. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. This could be the last time I see you smile.

A tear or two and one big, fat apology inevitably followed. I will never go to bed upset with him, or anyone, again. It’s not worth it. I’m more willing to pull an all-nighter and be sick the next day.

I’m learning about real love. It really does change your life. It literally brings light into your soul.

As I was laying there, snuggled next to Cody and relieved that we had made up and forgiven each other, all I could do was say a prayer.

Here is my prayer.