Mississippi Expat: Celeste Schueler

"I’ve never been ashamed to say I’m from Mississippi. I’m damn proud of it."

What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Today we hear from poet, feminist, and twin mom Celeste Schueler.

Featured contributor Celeste Schueler, who now lives in Seattle, Washington.

Where are you from?

I was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi and grew up in the Delta until about the age of eight. Then we moved to North Mississippi and I graduated high school from Hernando. I believe my roots are from the Delta though. Whenever I hear myself talk to my daddy, we sound so much alike because he’s from the Delta, too.

Before we moved to North Mississippi, I attended the Catholic school in Clarksdale and walked around Friars Point with my Grandmother Berta. She had a tiny white house in Friars Point and my daddy had a grocery store there as well. My grandmother taught me how to bake cakes, and I would help her in her garden. 

When did you move to Seattle and why did you move there?

I moved to Seattle in October 2021 after living in Oklahoma for almost nine years. My husband is an Air Force pilot, and that is what brought us here. I met my spouse when he was stationed at Columbus Air Force Base during my last year at Mississippi University for Women. When he found out he was being stationed in Mississippi, he wanted to meet a Southern woman. We both got lucky in finding each other.

Even though I’m from the Delta and attended college in Columbus, I am still attracted to large cities. I grew up going to Memphis, Jackson, and New Orleans quite a bit. My mother would take me to plays and restaurants in Memphis, and when I got my own car, I would drive into the city to see live music. After I met my husband, I would take him to juke joints in Memphis. We had our honeymoon in New Orleans. I lived in Oklahoma City for almost six years after I got married.

Seattle reminds me a lot of Memphis, since it’s on water, just a much larger body of water. Memphis and New Orleans have the riverboats, but Seattle has the large ships from the Pacific. 

What does “home” mean to you? How does Mississippi fit into that definition?

I married my husband in 2013, and we moved to Oklahoma City the day after we married. That first year of marriage was difficult because I was so homesick. The landscape of Oklahoma is vastly different from Mississippi. I missed the trees and azaleas and hydrangeas in my mama’s backyard. For the first year, my husband was the only person I really knew in Oklahoma, and he would deploy quite a bit. We spent the majority of our first years of marriage apart due to deployments and TDYs.

It took a few years, but I learned that home was with my spouse. That really became cemented when we had our twin daughters. My home is where my family is and my family is Nik and Amelia and Catherine.