What is a Southern Fried Woman?

One warm Carolina day, I said to a certain young woman of mine that the average Yankee man knows as much about a Southern Fried Woman as a cat knows about God’s plan of redemption.

“What’s a Southern Fried Woman? Lord, Mama, where d’you come up with that?”

I’m great at embarrassing my kids.

And so, I explained … while she sat and dutifully listened, as always.

A Southern Fried Woman’s family and friends laugh at her dreams. But Southern Fried Women have learned not to boil over about it and make a mess. They fry all the criticism out of their heads, admiring and tasting the occasional golden brown results … when nobody else does.

Boiling it down, they’re women born below the Mason Dixon line and range in age from sixteen to ninety-six. They’re not only fried, they’re burnt out on empty promises, dead end jobs, junk cars, making ends meet, and cheating husbands. Southern Fried Women are what Faith Hill, Loretta Lynn, and Patty Loveless sing about. Pasty Cline, Marshall Chapman, and the Judd’s are fine examples of Southern Fried Women.

Not being perfect, Southern Fried Women live to love again, believing the next set of dreams won’t give out.

For years, Southern Fried Women have fled northern cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York City, and Chicago. They escape the bitter cold of bad relationships and weather and return to the peace they once thought was boredom. They travel back to a life they once ran away from to achieve dreams that over time turned into nightmares.

Searching for the comfort of their roots, the Southern Fried Woman packs her car, her kids, and sometimes her husband, and heads home. Home to the “hollers” and coal towns of West Virginia and Kentucky, the Blue Ridge and beaches of Virginia, and the North Carolina Mountains and Outer Banks. The Low Country and battlefields of South Carolina whisper to her daily. Her eyes close and the plantations and bayou of Louisiana flash on her brain screen. The peach groves and rural dirt roads of Georgia call her in her dreams. Cotton fields and shrimp boats in Alabama invade her thoughts. The everglades, horse farms, and keys of Florida beckon. A vast river called the Mississippi winds through her memories. All roads lead to the Great Smoky Mountains and the back roads of Tennessee for some Southern Fried Women. The lakes, rivers, and farms of Arkansas reach out and pull her by the hand. The Southlands draw her to a place she once called home, or to a new place that something reincarnated in her must find.

Before she reaches the Ohio River, she hears the call of the whippoorwill, the wind rushing through the tobacco fields, and the whir of the cicada. She feels the hot sun on her back, tastes the sweet tea of the local diner where she had her first date and the salty air of the barrier island beaches where she lost her virginity.

A Southern Fried Woman is fed up with promises of something better. She woke up to find she possessed the ingredients for a happy life a long time ago. She’s let go of her pain, to hell with her pride. The dream was never any further than her mama’s backyard.

Southern Fried Women not only have all their eggs in one basket, they’ve fried them up with grits and gravy, hot buttered biscuits, and a pound of bacon and don’t give a damn who knows it. Southern Fried Women can’t stand to eat alone. When they cook a mess of beans, they want to eat them with a mess of people. But they’re experts at drinking alone.

A Southern Fried Woman knows life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce. They keep away from skunks, lawyers, and people who’ve been mean to them and learned a long time ago you can't unsay a cruel thing. A Southern Fried Woman’s path has had some puddles. They’ve washed a lot of mud off their faces.

They’re not frail and they don’t swoon. Southern Fried Women are about as fragile as a pack mule. After all, their mama’s taught them how to wash laundry in a Hotpoint on the back porch hanging miles of wet, heavy sheets and to pray the rain holds off. They iron their own clothes and can do their own hair and nails. They’ve been preached to, lied about, screamed at, broken, bruised, and just plain FRIED. They never give up; they just go home.

So you ask me, what is a Southern Fried Woman?

She’s any woman brave enough to start over again, Darlin’, never gives up her dream, wherever she decides home is.

Blessings to you and yours.