Mississippi Transplant: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
"Home is not just a place, it's people. It's a scent. It's what you can grow in a garden and what you can grow in your community."
What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Aimee Nezhukumatathil and her family moved to Oxford in 2017, thinking it would be a temporary home, but they soon fell in love with the college town. Seven years in, Aimee has become rooted within her community and the natural world of northern Mississippi. Aimee’s newest collection of essays, Bite by Bite: Nourishments & Jamborees (our August book club pick!), is as much a meditation on place and home as it is on food. She writes: “After chasing that word all my life I've come to realize as I near a landmark decade that the word ‘home’ is a shapeshifter. And there can be multiple homes that you hold in your heart.” Today she shares with us how Mississippi has come to feel like home for her.
Where are you from?
Born in Chicago, but lived in rural parts of Western New York…
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