Chandler Creel

I love the South. I do. Simply put. Despite past dilemmas and even current ones, my heart belongs on Southern grounds where the soil is rich and the air thick. It is what my heart and senses know and can comprehend. By definition, I am southern as some would say, 'the day is long.' My earliest memories include a long porch with a big swing and and learning the art of a gentleman's hand shake by practicing on my faithful golden retriever, Joshua. The path through the woods to my neighbor's house was well worn and included a downed oak that I suppose I have to thank for early lessons in balance. As a young southern boy, I had a respectable bed time that came before the sunset during those lasting summer hours. I lay awake starring out the window watching the sky pinken and listen to the hymns of whippoorwills as I fell asleep gently as a feather to the floor. Looking back on the simplest of times, I can feel the South around me just like the thick air it produces. After my mother bore a pure baby boy in Athens, Georgia in 1984, I started to soak it all in. Like a new sponge thrown into water, I soaked in the South and it became me and filled me. From pronouncing 'Dad' with two syllables and 'y'all' becoming everyday vocabulary, I was invisibly and unknowingly inked southern for the rest of my life. Permanent and gratefully.

I long for those "Southern moments" time to time. Each one soothes my soul and puts my tension at ease. A walk down the great oak lined drive at Wormsloe. The smell of marsh lowlands approaching Savannah and stepping on the cobble-stoned streets downtown. I'm sure you've had them, southern or not. Moments and times you sense history itself is looking down on you from above, nodding with gratitude at every occurrence southern genteel tradition is applied in day to day life. Feeling something old and grand. Knowing the path you walk on was paved, figuratively and literally, by the men and women who built my beloved South.

These intangible moments come in numerous variety. I have experienced grounds, even waters that tie me to the past. I have walked along the pathways and squares of the Roman Forum while feeling myself brush by white robes of emperors and senators. I have quietly paced on castle floors of marble and heard the strong and piercing booted steps of battle worn royalty echo in great halls. I am no emperor nor do I have royal blood in my veins. I am Southern male. Fearfully and wonderfully made. And unlike my time in Italy or Germany, when I find myself encapsulated by moments of the South, I am drawn into the past by my beloved southern lands, my ancestry touches my soul, raises my curiosity, and warms my heart.

As a young boy walking down River Street in Savannah or fishing in the pungent marshes, I would image the before. I picture the sun-worn people whose heals rubbed the same smooth stones I walk on after entering the port city on swift, wind-loving vessels. Along my grandfather, father, and uncle, I cruised the same channels and salt streams lowlanders looked for their next catch of blue crab or flounder. I have walked the streets and alleyways of Charleston and felt the pride and arrogance of old-South royalty by taking in the curved stairways, high porches, and hundred year old, color coordinating shutters around flowing panes of glass. I have trodded the silty, dry soil of plantation horses beneath the Wormsloe canopy. The strength of great oak and frailness of Spanish moss swaying like synced pendulums in the humid breeze. I take each step slowly in attempts to soak in and honor the times of before.

Those moments were surprisingly trumped by a weekend I will forever remember...pleasantly of course. Jacob, Ryan, Drew, Luke, Elliot, Lena, and I were well hosted by the Halford family of Memphis, Tennessee. The last afternoon of our Labor Day trip, we decided to go on a horse ride through the cotton fields along a spur of the Mississippi River.

I learned the joy, frustration, and difficulty in attaching a lead rope to a brilliant horse named Sage. Hollis, head of the Halford homestead, his daughters Rachel and Clara, Jacob, Luke, and I walked through the uncut pasture towards the wise Sage and wildly rambunctious Lucy. We fanned out and herded the horses westward in hopes to drive them into the stalls beneath the trees in order to catch and rein them. After high-stepping through the pasture grass for a few hundred yards, bringing the defensive fan closer, Lucy and another horse, calmly entered their stalls where the smallest and youngest of us, Clara, bravely hooked a lead rope around Lucy. But, Sage didn't enter his stall. "He's smarter than that," Hollis yelled. "He knows what we're up to. Don't let him out!" And as we drew closer and closer, Sage became more flustered and nervous. In we came and Sage was spinning looking for a way out. Ten feet now and he snorted. "Don't give him a way out!" Hollis said. Closer. Closer. Then Sage bolted. His hips sank down, front legs lifting inches off the ground, and hooves found grip in the soft earth, muscles flexing. He strode through a wooded area, leapt over a fallen tree, and galloped like thunder past our defense and into the open pasture.

I haven't spent much time around horses. I experienced and felt what true horsepower looks like and means on that September day. I learned to view horses in the same manner as other dangerous, yet intriguing things like fire, rifles, and girls: more respect, the better.

Eventually though, we guided Sage into a small corral to be reined by Hollis. But, not before him fleeing successfully twice more.

Above the pasture, at the barn, while Hollis selected and adjusted saddles for each horse, I spent some time with my soon to be ridden horse, Stretch, in attempts to "get to know each other." Stretch was the Halford family's first horse. Solid dirt brown. 34 years old. Blind in his left eye. "This horse DOES NOT make mistakes," Hollis assured me. I rubbed his head and looked into his one good eye. Swatted the humming bird sized horseflies away, saying things like, "Hey buddy. You doin' okay? Ready for a ride?" trying to connect with my horse. But, after touching the muscle and bone of this thousand pound beast, my mind had trouble placing him in a category. My eyes saw his lungs expand and contract. I watched his eyes blink and tail sway. I heard his nostrils expel air in snorts and nays. Sight and sound told me he was living. But, then I touched him. I rubbed his long face that was sturdy as concrete. I would smack him to shoo the horseflies that would bite and bother and he wouldn't flinch. Felt like slapping a large, mossed-over stump.

After each horse was bridled and saddled, we departed for our short ride before dark.

Setting off, there was something special in the air. Whether it was the fact that Hollis trusted us with his horses or that we got some time to ourselves. Ryan, Drew, Jacob, Elliot, Luke, and I have shared our lives together. At one point, eight of us were living in a six-man apartment on Tech's campus. They are my brethren, the wanted brothers of my youth, and there is an unspoken love between us. The door is always open, the couch is always available, and an embrace is never far off.

After walking through a field of tall grass, which swept the horses' bodies but still beneath our feet, the boys and their horses entered a wooded canopy. The shaded relief from a dog day sun was welcomed by me and surely the other guys and also the horses. I felt the thud of every horse step as my entire body would rise and sink in rhythm. Ducking under branches, slowly approaching downed logs to make sure the horse saw what was coming.

Finally, we came to a wide expanse a of cotton fields divided into shapes by straight lines of medium aged oak trees. The soil became more fertile and more soft, and our gallop increased in pace. As we cantered by the budless cotton plants, we saw a break in a line of trees several hundred yards to the West. What we saw silenced each one of us. Over the cotton plants, through the great oaks was a setting sun with the most vibrant of pinks I have ever seen. More brilliant than a neon on sign, and more natural bird's nest.

The break in the trees was the westward, perpendicular path to the one we were currently on heading north. Immediately, our minds synced and we took off in a herd of horse and young man. Turning the corner onto the western path, we put the sun behind the trees again, but we knew if we could get to the break in the trees in time, we would see the most amazing of sunsets. Heading down several hundreds of yards atop a tan, fine dirt path, there we were. Racing the sun. I have never felt more in tune with another animal or with my southern heritage than in that moment. We ebbed and flowed atop the galloping steeds, syncing ourselves with each stride, finding the proper rhythm with a pounding metronome. We thundered along in the pursuit of natural beauty in Tennessean cotton fields. We found ourselves in this moment smiling with clinched jaws as brothers with a simple goal. The search of natural beauty.

We missed it. Before we reached the line of trees where met the path, the sun had departed for that day and we missed embracing the fullness of that hot pink sun we only had a moment with to treasure. That glimpse burned itself into my memory and forever will I want to capture it again. But, such is life. The glimpses, the moments of purity we are given keep us in the pursuit of more.

Moments... Certain ones imprint themselves on us to the point where it stings the soul because it is not use to that amount of beauty, emotion, or love. An honest hurt of goodness comes around time to time. We may not expect it or understand it, but one thing it does for sure is make us feel, and feeling is good. Feeling is living. Feeling keeps us going. Feeling a baby grab your finger with the entirety of its hand. Feeling the beat of one's heart quicken every time a certain someone walks in the room. To feel is to live.

My friends and I reside in a different time zone than perfect. We stumble and we mess up, but by God we live and we love it.