What My Southern Upbringing Taught Me About Cultivating a Meaningful Life
A MEANINGFUL LIFE
Tammy Renée | Creating the Beautiful Life
4 min read
There are things I grew up with that I didn't know were meaningful at the time. They were simply life. The way our home was cared for. The way time seemed to stretch when someone stopped by. The way attention was given to the most ordinary days — so quietly that I didn't really notice it at the time.
Looking back now, I can see that so much of what I value most began there in those ordinary days. I've stood atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris and sat beneath the lights of Broadway. And still, no matter where I go, I remain, at heart, that small-town Southern girl, shaped by a love of home and the beauty found in simple things.
The Home
In the South, home is not just a place you return to at the end of the day — it's the center of things. Overflowing ferns and red geraniums on the front porch. Beautiful pink azaleas lining the front of the house. Honeysuckle blooming along the back fence line. Lace curtains in the windows, with the light glowing through them in the evenings. There was a sense that our home mattered, not in a performative way, but in a deeply rooted one.
There was no need to call ahead if you wanted to stop by. Our family had an open-door kind of life. People were always welcome. Some of my richest memories are simply of people gathered together in our home, laughing, eating, telling stories, while we kids played.
My mother brought the beauty and warmth that made everyone feel welcomed. My father brought the food and his peaceful nature. Together, they created something I didn’t fully understand at the time, but now, when I get too busy to spend time with friends and family, I feel its absence. It was about connecting with others. And how people felt when they spent time in our home.
The Feeling
When I think back on my childhood, I don’t just remember what we did. Most importantly, I remember how everything felt. The windows open in the evenings, listening to the sound of crickets and bullfrogs. The soft hum of oscillating fans on my grandmother’s screened-in porch.
On that porch, I can remember playing quietly on the blue-painted wood floors while the women in my family talked for hours. I didn’t realize it then, but I was absorbing something much deeper than conversation. I was learning a rhythm of life. A feeling.
There were fireflies in Mason jars — my father carefully poking holes in the lid so they could breathe. There were afternoons spent blackberry picking with my grandmother, followed by bowls of berries sprinkled with sugar and cream. There was peach cobbler made with my Granny in her kitchen. There was the scent of gardenias on the well-worn path leading from my Granny’s to my Grandmother’s place.
And then, there were the roses. I used to help my father in the garden. And when I was around eight years old, he surprised me with a small raised bed on the side of the house for a rose garden of my own. I was completely captivated and so proud as I tended my very own rose bushes. That love of roses became something I carried with me into adulthood.
Looking back, I can see that what I was learning wasn’t simply about how to garden. I was learning how to pay attention. How to notice beauty. How to create it. And how to tend it with care.
The Memories
We also carried the past forward — not just in the stories told over and over again on that porch and around dinner tables about people I'd never met, but in the objects themselves.
I have a small poetry book that my great-great-uncle kept in his pocket during World War I. I have an old hymnal that belonged to my great-grandfather. I have a fragile teapot with pink roses that once belonged to my great-grandmother.
These things weren't tucked away. They were used, displayed, cared for, and treasured — a kind of inheritance you could hold in your hands.
The Simplicity
That said, we didn’t live a perfect life. We had family losses and challenges, just like everyone else.
We also didn’t live elaborate lives. We took one vacation a year. The rest of the time, life was made up of simple things — campfires, playing in the woods with my cousins, a day trip to the Gulf to go crabbing and have a picnic on the beach, sitting with my grandmothers doing handwork — sewing, crocheting, or shelling peas — while nostalgic tunes played on the record player.
There was a rhythm to our lives. A fullness that didn’t come from having a bigger life, but from being present to the one right in front of us.
The Inheritance
I'm not trying to recreate my childhood. Instead, I want to live in the present while continuing to live by the values that have meant so much to me — a home that feels cared for, a life that pays attention to simple beauty, a pace that leaves room for people, and a quiet thread of connection to things that came before me.
I think of that rose garden often now. It was simply a patch of earth no bigger than a few steps across, and yet it taught me everything that I still believe about a meaningful, beautiful life. My father didn't surprise me with a fully planned-out and planted rose garden. He gave me the tools needed to do it on my own. He gave me choices. And then, through his quiet example, he taught me how to cultivate it with patience, intention, and care.
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