I arrived in Little Rock in November 2002 without my family and flew back and forth to the Detroit area all winter. I really liked it here. But when spring arrived, it was love. Where I’m from, spring is a running battle between summer and winter. A day or two of loveliness succumbs to a nasty sucker punch of heavy, wet snow, which in turn melts under a glaring hot sun with no leaves on the trees and no appropriate clothes in one’s closet. Here in Central Arkansas, it was cool and bright for weeks, with new flowers and fragrances and birds appearing every few days. It affected my mood like falling in love with a person. Four springs later, it still does. 

Not only the weather won me over. I remember telling my husband that he was not going to believe how warm, kind, and friendly everyone is here — overwhelmingly so, in a good way. I now enjoy iced tea in winter, have mastered the grammar of the second person plural and appreciate — having run dangerously close to being the object of an intervention — how vital it is to have one’s toenails polished at all times. I believe that all of these behaviors do truly represent better ways to be. 

However, just because my experiences for 40-some years were so different, I will always be an outsider to some extent, no matter how long I live here. And I’m glad. Because the contrast is so delicious, I never want to take for granted all the wonderful things about this place (or lose perspective on its flaws). I will never be convincing in my use of “y’all” and will (probably) never acquiesce to hairspray. But I want always to sustain my newfound ability to memorize a person’s family tree, to phrase observations of the unpleasant in the most diplomatic way (“It was a course of conduct that was never corrected”) — or at least with a blessing of the perpetrator’s heart — and enjoy the relaxed conversation about family that usually precedes even the most serious business negotiation. Even as I practice them, I want always to be able to observe these habits of mind and heart in my fellow Arkansans. I want always to feel that gratitude, as if it were always spring. 

— Nan Plummer