I've spent most of my summers in the Southern United States, and subsequently have been under her spell of woe and charm ever since. There really is nothing more beautiful to me than the fallen South.
The backdrop of my imagination is littered with trees covered in Spanish moss, the Smokies that roll through the Carolinas. The tree frogs sing songs at night that invade my sleep and drag me deeper into Dreamland.
I think of the South entirely in the way of her natural beauty, and I've always been drawn to things that were once grand, but are now tarnished and old. I love the remaining plantation houses that have been abandoned and left to rot.
My perspective of the South is romanticized, and I realize this; the media got to me as a child, what with Uncle Remus stories, Disney's Song of the South, and countless viewings of Gone With the Wind.
I love all of the literature that has come out of the South thanks to Miss O'Connor and Mr. Twain, even Mr. Faulkner, though I found it quite hard to get through his books.
And that is why, when I get too old and boring, enough so to settle down, I'll do so in the South. In a house with a large porch, a screen door that creaks when it swings, and a never-ending supply of sweet tea for me to sip while I read on said porch in my rocking chair.