I heard that today, a man on the radio declaring his every word the very soul of truth, in the middle of an advertisement for a car lot.
 It's the little things here, a twang, a word, a combination on a menu. There are times, long moments, where I forget that I'm across the country from where I was born and raised. For everything that's wildly different, a dozen things are the same.
 But Arkansas!

 The differences are enough - it's a different world here. Arkansas feels old, like the rest of the South. Old with a soul built of long history, held tight by people who value their roots, and their place. It's old like a great-grandfather's favorite armchair - it's comfortable, warm, built of old leather (or brick). There are cracks in the leather from age, tiny glimpses of stuffing poking out, but it fits around you like nothing else in the world, and it smells faintly like a favorite relative whenever you sit in it.

 You'd likely have to live here for a while to see that, but that's the feeling! Where California, despite it's natural age, feels oddly young. Like it's been rebuilt over and over, and most of it's short history has been cleaned up and polished, to the point where it looks as new as everything else. There's history, and memory, and he history of California is still honored, but nothing like the South!


 I'll take a sharp left turn here, as I'm still up in the air is so many ways, I'm arguably still in shock. So, let me talk about something simple. I have a short list of things I'm *really* excited for about the South - and it turns out, most of them are animals that are exotic to me, and pests here.
 Today, I chanced upon the first wild beast on that list-

 Today I saw a cardinal!


 Back home I would have called it a blue jay (he would have been blue), admired the brilliance of the winged devil, and shaken my fist at it as it flew away. Here, it's a cardinal! It flew straight at us as we drove down a side street, a blur of red and black magnificence!
 I'm sure it was in a hurry to get somewhere, and I lost sight of it quickly. But, as a child, the very idea of a bright red bird seemed so fantastical, so completely improbable, that they will always occupy a place in my mind just between fact and fiction. Seeing one is like stepping into a fairytale -

 Seeing a cardinal makes me feel as if I've gone from a world with limits into one without them. Even knowing a cardinal is just another bird, the thrill is just enough to remind me that anything is possible!

 And with that, I'll call it a night - the adventure, and the challenge of putting it all into words, continues tomorrow!