Ah, to be home… I think my World Tour sum up will have to wait until next week, as I’m in the midst of rushing off to a Presbyterian Women meeting regarding our Leadership Event this summer (which you should all consider attending!!!). But I did want to say hello before I left the office for the day.

I must say that I’ve grown rather fond of Kentucky in the nearly three years I’ve lived here. Mentally, I was waxing rather eloquent about it as we soared overhead on our way into Louisville airport last night.

I had finally calmed myself down by then—you see, I’m currently in the process of developing an inexplicable fear of flying. It ticks me off quite exceedingly, road warrior that I am, but what can you do? These phobias come and go as they please. Anyway, I saw the flat, brown, barren dots finally curl into rolling hills and then fade away into houses. In the outlying areas, the houses were large, imposing, with swimming pools and tennis courts in the backyard. As we came closer to the airport, those gave way to the cozy homes of comfortable middle class urbanity. Cars rushed by as I gradually recognized the steady stream of traffic below as workers speeding home on Interstates 65 and 264. I even saw the ugly office complex building that marks the area where I live.

Louisville is a town that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Perhaps it has been humbled by its rough beginnings, by its association with a state that gets a bad rap around the country. But I see Louisville as a city of comfortable dignity, a funky elegance. It is the kind of place where people really do live with some element of grace, regardless of their circumstances, a place where your neighbor will always have a cold glass of ice tea waiting for you if you drop by for a visit. Follow the car with the “Keep Louisville Weird” bumper sticker through the Highlands neighborhood, and you’ll see indigenous coffee shops, shimmering sequins adorning Lynn’s Paradise Café, peace activists on the corner, crazily painted horse statues standing guard on the sidewalks. Louisville never fails to surprise us.

Perhaps the Kentucky Derby, where you don your best hat to let your hair down in the mud and muck infield at Churchill Downs, really typifies the Louisville experience. In this capital of Kentuckiana (the local news’ way of talking about Louisville and southern Indiana), Southern elegance meets Midwest casual to create a different sort of “down home”… one where even a girl from the latte-sipping Pacific Northwest can find a niche.

And yes, in Stephen Foster’s words, the sun does shine bright on my old Kentucky home—at the far western edge of the Eastern Time Zone, we’re still seeing sunlight at 6:30 pm in February.

That sure warms the cockles of my heart, I can tell you.

“On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.” --Psalm 145:5

Kelsey

Kelsey,

You shouldn't say such things about Kentucky, or your mother is going to think that you want to stay there.