Skin Don’t Lie
This week, we study what it means to be exactly who you are, hiding nothing.
“Clothing covers all, hiding truth. But skin cannot lie…"
That’s a line from this week’s verse by Gary Grossman, an ecologist, professor, and poet who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s looking at the turn of the season, how autumn comes in with a brief and spectacular display of fiery color, then strips away all the world’s decoration, leaving the trees with only their bark—their skin—to cover themselves.
Skin seems to be a theme in this week’s collection of writing in Salvation South. Our lead story—with its pluperfectly gorgeous pictures—comes from a Raleigh photographer and writer named Joshua Steadman. Joshua got in touch several months ago and told me about a woman named Betsy Haywood, a woman of means and pedigree who lived in an antebellum mansion in downtown Raleigh named after her family: Haywood House. Back in the teens, Betsy started doing what many of us do—trying to plug names into the branches and leaves of our family trees. As she began trying to make contact with the descendants of her ancestors, she learned that quite a few of those descendents were Black‚ because some of Betsy’s slave-holding ancestors had fathered children by women they enslaved.
—“All of These People Are Cousins”: words and photos by Joshua Steadman
—“Fight From Away”: an essay by Neema Avashia
—“Bare Bones”: a poem by Gary Grossman
I’m also glad once again to have the chance to edit the work of Neema Avashia, a writer and teacher who grew up in West Virginia, the daughter of immigrants from India. Neema’s essay for us, “Fight From Away,” tells the story of folks like her with roots in Appalachia who leave the region for any of a variety of reasons—but can never carve those mountains out of their hearts. They live, as it were, in their Appalachian skin—and will live in it for all time, always fighting for and defending the mountain people and mountain culture that made them who they are.
All of you who read our publication live in your own Southern skin in one way or another. And all of you, as we do here in Salvation South’s tiny red barn, must from time to time wrestle with exactly what that means. We have discovered over the decades that Southerners...well...we ain’t like snakes. We never shed our skins, not completely.
But reveling in the stories that come from how this region shaped us, that’s where the fun is. We hope this week’s stories and poems bring you some food for your brains, hearts, and souls. And we’ll be back next weekend with more.
About the author
Chuck Reece is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Salvation South, the weekly web magazine you're reading right now. He was the founding editor of The Bitter Southerner. He grew up in the north Georgia mountains in a little town called Ellijay.
- Chuck Reecehttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/chuck_reece/
- Chuck Reecehttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/chuck_reece/
- Chuck Reecehttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/chuck_reece/
- Chuck Reecehttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/chuck_reece/
