When I remember the coast-lands of the Gulf of Mexico, the word that sticks in my head is “brackish”. Not just for what it is, that estuary-zone where salt water and fresh water blend, but for how emblematic the word seems to for the area itself. It looks perfectly like English, but doesn’t quite sound like anything you’ve ever heard. It may have once been an adjective, but local flair has turned it into a noun. Even just saying it feels harsh, like something you can learn to respect without being to comfortable with.

That natural estuary well-mirrors the cultural one, thanks to the colonial activity of the Gulf ports having created the present swirl of English, French, Spanish, West African, and Native American flair. The culture of places like New Orleans and Siesta Key are too cosmopolitan to be Southern, but too Southern to feel as foreign as Miami. It’s at once an escape for snowbird retirees like my grandparents, state-school spring-breakers, and rampant bachelorette parties, as it is the home of the Everglades, America’s very own slide of Australian-style natural hostility complete with gators, panthers, pythons, and a thousand other ways to die.