ENGL 399 Profile FINAL REVISION

More Than Country

"Momma, I need my black leggings. I think I left them on the bed. No? Check the drawer. No, the third one down. Moom. Listen to me. Third drawer. Oh my lanta."

Click.

My old roommate is a different person on the phone with her Momma. Actually, that's not completely true—her personality is just as strong, and her vocal decibels are just as loud. The main difference is the pull on the ends of her words, dragging out the vowels to prove she's really from out in the boonies. She is a living example of the nurture side of the nature versus nurture debate. When I go home with her, we both come back with accents. But she's more than just a country girl.

From a superficial standpoint, there's proof of her country roots everywhere. When I lived with her, I could peek in her closet and see the cowgirl boots (she bought me a pair for my birthday so I can pretend I'm country too). She's famous for her collection of 35 pairs of jeans and counting, but on guys the only jeans she cares about are Wranglers. We went to a Jason Aldean concert together, one of those events that brings together rednecks and preps and equalizes everyone with cowboy hats and guitar music. As we were leaving the concert, she leaned over and whispered, "Just look at him. When I have kids, I'm gonna dress my little boys just like him."

"Cowboy boots too?"

"Duh. And Wrangler's. They'll be so precious, in their little Wrangler's and their little boots and their little shirts tucked in!"

"I hope your husband will like Wrangler's!"

"He will. And we'll name our little boy Wyatt."

She pronounces Wyatt like Whyyat. I tell her it sounds like the way my calculus teacher in high school said "quiet": "Quat!" She's not concerned.

"Aw, lil Whyyat. And he'll wear little flannel shirts! It'll be so precious."

I met her at some Campus Crusade event early on in our freshman year, so I knew about the God part of her life from the beginning. The country side came out later. Her roommate was Regan, a loud, Roca-wearing Newport News girl who wasn't afraid to call it like it is, and together they were an fun but intimidating duo. When I got back from winter break that year, I saw her and Regan at the dining hall.

"Hi Rebecca!"

"Oh, hi!"

"We're thinking of getting a house next year. We've been looking. I'm so pumped!"

"Oh, that's great!" I said, wondering why they were bothering telling me. "Who will live there?"

"Well, we were thinking us, Steph, Lauren, you…"

I played it cool and said yes, that would be fun. But I barely knew these girls. And we didn't end up getting a house our sophomore year—we opted for an apartment on-campus. Ashley and I were randomly signed up for a room together in the apartment, thinking we could switch rooms around when we got to school in the fall. We didn't. For the first few weeks of school, I thought she hated me and life, so I hated me and life, until we finally talked and I realized how alike we are and aren't. One heart-to-heart led to another, and by the time she moved off campus the next year and I stayed on, even our tastes in music and our ability to (barely) play the guitar were in sync. When we traveled to the Dominican Republic together over spring break so she could do research for an independent study class, we started calling each other "mi hermana."

When we played guitar, it was usually country music. When we talked, it was usually about Jesus. Early on, I don't think I quite believed how country her town is until I went home with her. She grew up in a tiny town near Rockbridge, VA, where her cousins were her neighbors. I always tell her that she and her twin sister Amber are, like the country song says, "famous in a small town." We stopped at her grandparents' gas station—her grandma was a huge influence on Ashley's view of Christianity and has now met Jesus himself in heaven, but then she was still sitting inside waiting for the town to stop by for a soda and some wisdom—and Ashley's 10-year-old cousin roller-bladed up to the car to whisper family news into Ashley's ear. We pulled out of the gas station parking lot, drove a couple hundred yards, and pulled into a long winding driveway. The driveway spills into a little clearing with a house with a swing on the front porch. I can almost picture her daddy up on the roof, nailing shingles onto the house that he built.

We waved at her momma through the kitchen window—by day a brilliant and tough hospital coordinator, by night country wife and momma. She was cooking the chicken casserole and mashed potatoes and green beans that Ashley requested over the phone on her way home. Her daddy, a UPS driver with theological knowledge to rival the preacher's at the Baptist church down the road, walked in late from work, ducking his head to avoid the doorframes. We sat down at the dinner table under the watchful eye of the gun cabinet. A picture of Ashley and Amber used to perch on top of the gun cabinet, cautioning any potential boyfriends who came over for dinner.

Instead of owning the stereotypical country dog (to ride shotgun in a truck while a farmer dips tobacco and grumbles about Democrats), Ashley has a cat named Cleo. Actually, her name is more like Kitty (PrettyKittyKittyKitty to be exact, cooed while nuzzling Cleo's soft gray fur). Cleo has claimed a bar stool by the kitchen window to gaze out at her sunny turf. When a plant had the gall to sit on her stool, she disgustedly stalked around the kitchen, and then decided she needed another snack. As with most princesses, she got her way (with the stool and the snack). Even Ashley's dad caters to the family royalty. To cement her place in the family tree, Cleo's picture appears between Amber's and Tyler's (Ashley's boyfriend) on Ashley's blog. Maybe Tyler should've bought Tim McGraw cologne. (Instead, he bought the Usher fragrance, and told Ashley it "smells like swag.")

Ashley and I drove through Lexington once and parked near the main street to go boutique-hopping. She casually mentioned that kids from her high school would go park there after school and hang out at the picnic tables. A flood of country music lyrics rushed into my head—Out in the parking lot first on the list—and I realized this girl is for real. Tyler has his phone set so it twangs "She's Country" when she calls. He looked up first country song he could find and hit the jackpot. This girl is country.  

But there's more to her than that. I knew that from the beginning—she talks openly about her life plans, and since she's graduating a year early, she has been on an accelerated search to figure out her passions and priorities in life.

One night at her house in Fairfax, Ashley had an announcement to make.

"Well, I have some news—I'm finally sure! I'm going on the World Race this fall!"

Our nine Bible study girls sat around us, listening attentively as Ashley shared. They all knew about the graduation plan, but after that there were all sorts of possibilities. There's a pause when she stops talking.  

Then Elizabeth, never one to let silence run too long, asked, "What's the World Race?"  

"I'll be going to 11 countries in 11 months, working in orphanages and with women who have escaped from sex slavery and stuff like that. God's just given me a huge heart for kids and for women, and this year He has just confirmed that this is what I'm supposed to do. I just wanna tell the world about Jesus!"

I knew it, as Ashley would say. She always knows everything. You can't surprise her. Sometimes we tease her: "I knew you were going to eat a whole wheat wrap with egg and turkey bacon for breakfast! I knew it!" I usually don't "know it"—she thinks she can figure out what I'm going to do, but I can't figure her out—but she has talked about full-time missions for as long as I've known her and her country-ness. Oddly enough, it seems like an un-country thing to do, not going back to the heartland permanently. She's already traveled Latin America and now she's ready to travel the world. She loves her country home but, as she says, it will probably only see her long-term in her retirement. Her twang will follow her around the world, reminding her of her roots as her heart brings aid and good news to anywhere her path, and her God, takes her.