Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Match Day

Oh to be young and carefree and bolder than is warranted by good common sense.
My brother-in-law and his wife, expecting their first baby, are celebrating Match Day today. After four years of medical school, he now has a residency to conquer. And med school seniors have a very special process for finding out where they will spend the next 2 years of their lives - Match Day. In a formal ceremony, after professors and other speakers have ceased speaking all their obligatory words of inspiration, they begin handing out white envelopes filled to the seal with destiny.

Each student, when his or her name is called, walks across the stage to retrieve the envelope designated as his or hers. Then the students makes what must seem like an even longer walk back across the stage, clutching mystery in a sweaty palm.

The Envelope Please.
The crisp, clean, white envelope contains the name of the city and hospital of each M.D. candidate's residency. With a rip and a tear, which they all swear is no reflection of their surgical precision, the mystery place is revealed, and life turns on a dime and shoots off in a different direction. And they find themselves free to lay down the burdens of one place to seek and find the thrills of another.

I want an envelope.
Frankly, I'm jealous. I want an envelope. I want that freedom to just go where someone told me to go, without ever having to make the decision myself. I want to go on an adventure that makes left turns and zig-zags to places I wouldn't have chosen for myself. I want to experience that emotion of change.

But, I'm a southern lady, and I well know the difference between foolish and fearless. It is foolish to believe that life would be any different somewhere else than it is right here. When the sport of it wore off, I'd have the same problems in a different place.

The quality of my life depends more on what I do with it than where I live it. (Although, admittedly, if I drew an envelope that took me from my southern home, I would probably try to rig my next draw to bring me home.)

Making my own Match Day.
That doesn't make my desire for venturesome behavior any less intense. So I stuffed some envelopes of my own. I put in slips of paper that say things like, "Go get ice cream," "Take the kids to a movie," "Have your nails done," "Take your husband on a date," "Day trip to the beach," etc. When I need a little fearless fun, I plan to pull an envelope and do whatever it says.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: In your Book of Lists, brainstorm a list of things you would like to do but rarely make time for or let yourself indulge in. Then write the ones you really like on slips of paper and seal them in envelopes. Keep your stack of stuffed envelopes in a safe place, and pull one whenever you feel like you're making too many right turns and you need a curve in your road. Commit yourself to going wherever the envelope sends you.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 29

So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
--Matthew 25:28-29

On Day 6 of Southern Girls Living Fearlessly, did you find your passion? Did you discover your talent? Are you still struggling to admit to it or find it? Are you fearful, like the servant who received one talent, of taking a risk with it so you've buried it in the ground, held it back, resisted developing it? Or have you multiplied it like the servants in the parable who received 2 and 10 talents from their master?


Who has the more complete life? Who is fully engaged? Who is living each day, week, month, year to its very limits? - The woman who finds her passion, capitalizes on her talents, and fails? Or the woman who plays it safe and never uses her gifts, justifying her reluctance by saying that the world is a cruel, unwelcoming, and unpredictable place and that she will not put herself at its mercy?

Our gifts, talent, passions, whatever you choose to name them, are freely given to us, and we are free to do with them as we please. The master chose to give his servants talents and left them with the responsibility of wisely investing them. Like the servants in the parable, we too have a responsibility to invest our gifts in this world. The greater our investment, the greater our returns, the more abundance we will experience.


As a school child, Thomas Edison was told he was stupid. Yet, as an adult, he discovered he had a passion for inventing. He took a risk. In fact, he took approximately 10,000 risks and failed approximately 10,000 times in his effort to invent the electric light bulb. Had Edison believed his teachers, had Edison not accepted his talents, had he not been willing to invest in his passion, he would never have brought light to the world.

We can bring light to the world as well. In fact we have a responsibility to overcome our fear of failure and earn returns on the talents we've been given.

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, said success lies on the other side of failure.


If we have not used our talents, we have not failed. If we have not failed, we have not lived fearlessly. If we have not lived fearlessly, we have not lived. If we have not lived, we have not succeeded.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Read the entire parable of the servants and the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). Then read Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 6 again. Find your passion. Next, in your Book of Lists, write down your talents and ways that you can use them. Finally, act.

Know that you too have been given talents according to your ability. Multiply your talents and gain abundance. Ignore your talents and lose what you have.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 27

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go on.
--Andrew Jackson


I sure hope he credited his mama for those words of wisdom. I know that's where he heard them first.

Life is the sum of small decisions. Everyday, I face choices, some of which I would rather avoid. But even when I skirt around them, or delay them by agonizing over the details and possible consequences, or ignore them, I'm making a decision.

I love my mother-in-law. She is organized, kind, deliberate in her actions, conscientious about making her house a home even though her children are grown and married. She has difficulty making decisions, however. For example, she will shop every store in town looking for the perfect curtain rod. Not because she can't find anything she likes, but because she fears leaving unexplored options on the table. Meanwhile, the bare windows provide no privacy.

We are the decisions we make and the ones we let other people make for us and the ones we refuse to make and the ones we can't make. Where we end up when all is said and done greatly depends on all the little choices. Finding the balance between deliberating our options and taking action says a lot about who we are and what we value. Certainly, curtain rods won't throw off the course of my mother-in-law's life, but is thinking a little longer worth its weight in time she could spend doing something else more rewarding?

Southern ladies don't necessarily leap into things, letting their skirts fly over their heads for the whole world see their foundation garments. But they certainly don't sit around wringing their hands about the little stuff, either. Because, it's up to us to model lives well-lived, time well-spent, for those who are watching our every step.

So, what are you going to do? Are you going to sit around and think about living fearlessly, or are you going to get up and go do it?

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: It's about making a choice of course! Have you ever watched an old movie in which a character approaches the bar and the bartender asks, "What'll it be?" The hero or heroin responds, "The usual, Wallace," and the bartender says, "Sure thing. A strained Tom Collins, no ice, two olives, and a dash of V-8 coming right up."

Okay, I ad libbed quite a bit, but you get the picture. Our character in question is known by his/her own personal drink. I think you know where I'm headed with this. Today, you've got to choose your drink; the one that says who you are, the one that friends and family know you by, the usual. Is it chocolate milk on ice? Is it Diet Coke with a twist of lemon and a dash of leftover coffee from the morning brew? Is it an Upside Down Southern Belle with a parasol?

You decide.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 23

Start with a clean slate.

Some days I think to myself, If I could just start all this over again, I would do the whole thing differently. I've often thought about how, if I could go back in time and get a re-do on my college years, I would break up with my high school boyfriend before getting there, I would major in journalism or math, I would study harder my freshman year, I would get to know some of my professors better. If only, if only.

But, I'll never get a do-over on anything. Not really. Nevertheless, today I got as close to a do-over as anyone gets and it wasn't initially as blissful as I thought such a chance might be. At work on Monday, our computer network contracted a permanent flaw and lost all the data everyone in my division ever saved on the netshare. Today we were informed that it is irretrievable.

I lost years of work. Plus, I lost all my documents, spreadsheets, and power points generated from intense research over the last several weeks. There is no record of my accomplishments, other than a few printouts. The data I am supposed to analyze has vaporized.

It tweaked me today, when I found out that I now have to re-create all the spokes on my wheel that will keep rolling forward whether I'm prepared or not.

At home tonight, however, when that little knot in my chest started to unravel and I had a moment of clarity, I realized what a rare opportunity I have - a chance to start fresh. I can redefine my job and how I execute it. I can take risks with it that I never did before. With no comparisons of old to new in existence, no point of reference, I can conduct a total re-do.

Oh, sweet euphoria. I've got a clean slate and the possibilities are exciting and endless. And it leaves me asking, Why wait until fate gives me a second chance? Why not give myself the gift of a do-over here and there? And while I'm at it, why not give permission to my friends to start over, too?

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Today all you have to do is accept my permission to start over tomorrow, regardless of what you did today. You are relieved of your obligation to any path you've chosen that no longer suits you. Today is the day that you quit the volunteer committee that has become a burden to you. Today is the day you tell your spouse you want to make a career change. Today is the day you take the first step on your course to fulfilling a dream. Today you are throwing off all the burden of trying to live up to the expectations of everyone else and you're starting anew as the authentic YOU. It's the do-over of a lifetime. All you have to do is accept my gift.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 22

Just as long as I'm in this world, I will be a light of this world.
- Joan Osborne, on the CD Little Wild One


It's a terrible habit we women develop of criticizing people. We can see flaws from miles away.


In a confidential whisper, during a recent funeral service, a woman sitting next to me on the pew leaned over and confidentially whispered, discreetly pointing toward a female down the row, "Can you believe she wore flip-flops to church? I guess at least they are black," she chuckled.


To my ears, nothing sounds worse than a scathing remark about another person spoken in a conspiratorial accent. Whether we're framing our negative comments with "bless his heart" or "bless her heart" or not, if we are truly honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we're not being very nice. Didn't our sweet southern mamas always tell us that if we didn't have anything nice to say, we shouldn't say anything at all? Didn't our sweet southern mamas teach us to love our neighbors as ourselves?


Sticks and stones might break bones, but words can rip the soul.


Living fearlessly means changing the world. We can change the world. Our words, spoken in that lilting southern drawl, can be a light in this world.


Why did that lady next to me at the funeral feel the need to speak out loud her assessment of our fellow mourner? Was she trying to add humor to a tense situation? Was she attempting to establish herself in my opinion as someone who knows her etiquette? Did she have a brain tumor that caused her to randomly rattle off every thought that came into her head? Had her mama never told her not to talk in church?


Whatever the reason, she didn't intend for her comments to make the world a better place, even if she didn't consciously seek to make it worse. But had the victim of the comments overheard, she would have been hurt and embarrassed, not built up.


TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: As long as you're in this world, be a light to this world. Fearlessly use your words.

1. Give an honest compliment to a total stranger.


2. Give an honest compliment to a person you love.


3. Give an honest compliment to yourself.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 16

Change - it's not just those coins floating around in the bottom of your purse, gathering in the corners of the seams while you try to shake them loose, hoping to find enough money for the Coke machine so you can buy that Diet Co-cola you will most assuredly die without.

Change is scary. Change happens without our permission. Change is what we resist when one door closes and we put our backs up against the door that's opening and brace our legs and push for dear life. And the whole time we're keeping our eyes locked on the door that shut and praying that it will stay shut.

Change busts through, anyway, saying, "Hey y'all. I'm here. I sure could use a cool glass of that sweetened iced tea." Before we know it, change settles in, makes itself at home, and we can hardly remember when things were different (or we wonder why we didn't invite it over sooner), until, of course, it comes around letting itself in the back door.

We fear change, because we feel like we have no control over it. We fear change because it requires us to put effort into adjusting. We fear change because as bad as things are right now, we sure hate for them to get worse. We fear change because we don't think we can be any happier. We fear change because it doesn't come at our convenience, when we're ready and waiting.

To live fearlessly we must -
1) Have faith that change works for our greater good;
2) Accept the change that comes and flow with it;
3) Actively make change.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Take control of change.

Make a change for the better. First, think of one behavior that you would like to QUIT. It could be smoking, it could be drinking soft drinks, it could be gossiping, it could be buying stuff you don't need, it could be watching TV, or any number of things. Give it up, today. And then wake up in the morning and give it up again tomorrow. Give it up again the next day. And keep giving it up, keep making that change, until it makes itself at home on your front porch like an old dog you've raised since it was a puppy. Have faith that this change, as difficult as it is, is working for your greater good.

Second, choose one behavior you would like to ADD to your life. It could be saving a certain amount of money each month, it could be exercising a certain number of times each week, it could be writing a letter every day, it could be getting a job, it could be making time to write poetry, or, again, any number of things. Add it today, add it tomorrow, add it the next day, and add it every day after that, until you're doing it without thinking, without effort.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 1

I present to my readers, the Day 1 of the Southern Girl's Primer on Living Fearlessly. Make sure you do the assignments found at the end of each day. Before long, you'll be living a new, more vibrant life, without ever giving up your neutral decorating pallet:

There are opportunity costs built into everything we choose. We often overlook the fine print at the bottom of the contract and sign a waiver without reading it. If we didn't we would never make a decision or move forward. Making an informed decision is preceded by long periods of failure to act.

I've decided enough is enough. I will live fearlessly. I'm throwing caution tape to the wind, unfurling it like big yellow celebration streamers. Let it wrap someone else in complacency.

Oh heavens! What am I saying? A good southern woman can't do that! We have rules, we have standards, for goodness's sake, we have etiquette to follow. I would simply die if I thought my neighbors disapproved of my behavior.

But there must be a way. Certainly living fearlessly doesn't mean wearing a black dress to a wedding or a hot pink cocktail number to a funeral. I don't have to paint my monogram on the garage door or hang out in a juke joint to live fearlessly. Southern girls can honor their heritage, keep their proper prim, and still throw a buttered biscuit now and again. We can know who our people are, compose a polite invitation or thank you note, deliver casseroles to the sick and deceased, and still sweeten our tea with pure sugar.

Take me, for example. For six years a bare bulb hung from the ceiling of my 1915 home. I decided when we moved in that I would buy a crystal chandelier to match the huge ones in the living room and dining room. I feared marring the traditional architecture of my home by hanging something more modern. After six years of concern, worry, saving, angst, searching, I found myself in a lighting store making an impulse buy.

I purchased a walnut colored pendant fixture. After my husband hung it, I looked up and realized what a fool I had been all these years, tangled up in caution tape. It wasn't a crystal chandelier that the room needed, it was a touch of me.

YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT: What your life needs is a touch of YOU in it. Today go buy a piece of canvas, an old board, a slip of tin roof, anything with a paintable flat surface (but, do be tasteful, no saw blades or birdhouses). Using whatever paints and brushes you have, create your own folk art, abstract art, self-portrait, etc. There are three rules to this:
1) Do not paint what other people expect you to paint.
2) Your finished work must be displayed in a common area of your house, where guests to your home will see it.
3) You may never, under any circumstances, including being pressured by a realtor or interior decorator, make excuses for it, diminish it verbally, or move it to a less conspicuous area; that would be like badmouthing YOURSELF and hiding away in a closet and we all know a proper lady would never poor mouth the family name.

Still Living Fearlessly . . . Sort Of

Just a question. I've been thinking a lot about my March-made New Year's Resolution to take life by the roots of its hair and pull until it cries, "Uncle." And while contemplating this questionably unladylike behavior, I've encountered a bit of a quandary, even a possible quagmire.

Can a southern lady truly live fearlessly without risking her virtue or her neutral color palette?

My dilemma is a crimp in the curling iron, for sure. What's a girl to do?

The New Faux Pas

Back in Mama T's day, that's my late grandmother, smoking and walking was about the tackiest thing a woman could do. Going in public without lipstick ran a close second. Unlike the lipstick oversight, in which unkempt lips was the real error of her ways, in the walking and smoking travesty smoking had nothing to do with the transgression.

A woman could sit and smoke until her lungs fell out and she croaked like a midnight catfish and not a soul would bat an eye. A woman could chat on the party line and inhale enough creosote to pave a road from Georgia to Montana and no one would think the lesser of her. She could even drive carpool with the windows rolled up and her children choking pneumatically in the rear seat and who in the world would dare accuse her of behaving un-ladylike.

But as soon as she began the long, unvirtuous walk from her car to the doors of the grocery store with a tobacco stick dangling from her lip or squeezed between two fingers with painted over yellowed nails, the Junior League president would be on the phone with the Garden Club president. Her UDC and DAR ribbons would be stripped from her lapel, and she would never again be asked to make her lemon squares for the UMW bake sale the Sunday after Easter.

Of course, now that smoking itself has fallen out of favor and walking has gained great strides in the health and fitness world, we've had to search high and low for a way to distinguish quality folks from the undesirables. But sitting on Charlotte's front porch swing on Tuesday, I figured it out, the standard we've been missing. Some savvy socialites already apply it, but they've jumped ahead of the curve.

The new litmus test for judging character and self-worth is where people park their cars when they get home from a long day at the grind stone. Front yard parkers, who leave their cars on lawn or dirt (same as putting the car on blocks as far as their neighbors are concerned, even if the car is a Jaguar) for all the world to see, couldn't get an invitation to join the Colonial Dames if they descended straight from the Jamestown settlers.

A proper lady tucks her car at the rear of her domicile and enters through the backdoor, so that her premises will appear undisturbed, pristine, and desolate, just as a realtor or HGTV host would have it. She will never mar the beauty of her home by sitting on the front porch, allowing her pets to frolic in the front yard, or letting her children toss a ball where someone might see. No one wants to view an old lady tottering to her front door or sprawled on the steps with a broken hip. It's uncouth. Folks simply can't bear to watch a young mother tote groceries into the house. How degrading.

Walking and smoking no longer the downfall of genteel living, it's the misparked car that will bring civilization to a hallelujah-halt in the south. Untinted lips, however, still run a close second.

Just the Right Insult for the Occaision

As every southerner knows, male or female, insults must be tailored to the occasion. And as Thanksgiving is pecking at the door, I thought I would give you one to pack in your bags and take to your relatives, who by Thursday afternoon will have sufficiently annoyed you enough to break it out and leave on ice as you depart.

All good, decent, upstanding, moral southern women currently stand in kitchens, dining rooms, and butler pantries all over Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas, Arkansas, Kentucky, and other less desirable places to which they have been unfortunately relocated, polishing, along with their silver, their tongues. They rehearse, in private, how they will tell Uncle Bubba to smoke out on the porch, and Aunt Viola to stay out of the kitchen, and other things of that nature.

All good, decent, upstanding, moral southern men currently stand in driveways all over Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas, Arkansas, Kentucky, and other less desirable places to which they have been unfortunately relocated, with their leaf blowers revved, thinking how they will run interference between their side of the family and hers. They blow leaves in and out of the driveway for a very long time.

By Thursday at noon, extended families will have piled into cars and driven to the homes of hosts and hostesses, for the lunch to end all lunches. Some will cope by imbibing liquor squirreled away in secret stashes. Others will survive through psychological or physical withdrawal. At any rate, nerves will rub raw by 6p.m. and you, my friend, will have the ultimate survival technique, gleaned from these pages. You will have an insult tailored to the occasion:

Say, confidentially to the family gossip in hushed whispers, "Good heavens, can you believe ___________? She acts like a guest in her own home!" Then kiss Thanksgiving good-bye, because as all good, decent, upstanding, moral southerners know, Thanksgiving is a designated fighting holiday.

Grits Cookies

Cooking is not my forte. My kids call my kitchen "Mama's Smokin' Restaurant." And although a real, actual fire (not one I will admit to, anyway) has ever broken out, I have on many occasions stood over the kitchen sink with a butter knife scraping the surface of blackened toast. My husband blames it on ADD (Aimlessly Dawdling Disorder), so he cooks a good deal. Just goes to show how well things work out, in the end.

Nevertheless, I sometimes, against the better judgement of others, make up my mind to whip up an amazing culinary delight. It always excites my ever optimistic children to see what I will desecrate next. Yesterday, it was the all-American chocolate chip cookie; because of course I can make a good thing better.

I decided I could elevate the chocolate chip cookie to a whole new level by giving it a southern twist - grits. In my mind, where everything is as blissful as a Christmas Carol, the fresh baked cookies steamed with the aroma of homemade oatmeal desserts, minus the befoulment by raisins. Completely sucked into my self-delusional fantasy, I stood in the grocery aisle faced with a momentous decision - exactly what type of grits should I use?

Instant or regular? Whole or cracked? White or yellow? Impulsively, I bought every kind displayed. The cashier eyeballed me with a sideways glance, but seeing the feverish focus in my face, made a wise choice not to comment.

At home, whipping up my secret recipe sure to win me the blue ribbon at the state fair, I had a new dilemma. In what form should I add the grits? Cooked or dry? Runny and hot or cold and clumped? I can't tell you exactly what I did, mostly because it was sort of a combo of all of the above and I didn't write it down.

Finally, I pulled a batch from the oven, scraped the black edges off and fed them to my four lab rats, who, oddly enough, feigned joy at receiving my gift. Standing back so as not to pressure the critics, I watched them chew. And chew. And chew. And chew.

At last, the six year old's lips parted. I waited with bated breath. She bent her head into her palm held close to her mouth. Oh no, I thought and grabbed the trashcan. But then she lifted her head, grinned, and held out her hand. "They're a little bit crunchy, Mama," she said, handing me her front tooth.

Back to the mixing bowl.