The New South

A Colorful Statue: Hopelands Gardens

Today I entered what M calls "the nexus of the universe" possibly "singularity." I stood, for an instant, in the one place where all deals meet. Somewhere on State Route 78, South Carolina's Heritage Corridor, a Dollar General and a Family Dollar face each other like dueling brothers, sad and exciting all at once.

This, my friends, could be one vision of the New South, things that end in Wiggly, Dollar, and House, along long stretches of pine stands, cotton fields and calls to salvation. I did not know this until today, but there is actually an official yellow highway sign that just says: Church.

Today we visited with one of M's former students and a guest writer for our "other blog."

Josh and Amanda at Dunkin Donuts

It's Josh's graduation day, so we gave him some old lady advice over coffee and talked about "places" where we are from, who we are, the South, California and America. I probably swore too much. Oh, well. I like giving superior old lady advice to young people just starting out in life.

We picked up some equipment and food for the road and hit Hopeland Gardens, before hitting the road.

Hopelands Gardens, AKA Dharma Initiative's freshly discovered "Horse" Station

Hopelands Gardens was the gift of by by Mrs. C. Oliver Iselin to Aiken in the late '60s. It was a beautiful place to start a journey, green and lush and full of turtles, lizards and gigantic koi.

On the way to Charleston we stopped at God's Acre in Blackville, SC and had a drink from the healing springs.

I drank this water and now I feel very healed.

The land here was deeded to God some time ago, so everyone gets to use it. When we went, there was an older woman filling up jugs of healing water for herself and her husband. We filled up ours and helped her carry hers back to her car. After, I drank some of the water. It was cool and good.

Healing water is piped straight from the earth.

We stopped at a Mennonite store up the road from the springs where we bought dehydrated okra to eat. It all felt very Southern.

After, we made our way to Charleston where we had dinner with my lovely Aunt and Uncle at a restaurant called Mustard Seed, which was great. Tomorrow we are off to see three cities, Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine, and to visit with a dear, dear friend there.