This is part 2 of a 5-part series. Paula Deen’s full story appears in the fall 2018 issue of Shrimp, Collards & Grits magazine. 

Well, paradise wasn’t done and finished. It was waiting somewhere over the horizon. 
The day was coming when the electric cries of boat-tail grackles would replace South Georgia’s singsong cicadas. 
Paula’s life trajectory would take her coastward, but she couldn’t know that growing up. Like a lot of kids she had that longing, that wanderlust, for the sea that haunts landlocked souls. 
“Every chance we got as high school teenagers we wanted to get to Panama City. Get to Panama City. We were 3.5 hours away.” She pauses, thinking back.
“I was born in the southwest corner of Georgia, in Albany, farmland, in the middle of peanuts and pecans.” 
 Nothing’s worse than growing up landlocked once you’ve had a taste of the sea. 
When woods and fields surround you, the beach seems a million miles away. Some of us made do with a lake, pool, or river. The only thing sure to reach the sea was that river. For me it was the Savannah. For Paula, it was the Flint. 
It’s 234 miles from Albany (pronounced all-benny) and its Flint River down through Savannah to the Wilmington River. The passage takes one just north of the Land of the Trembling Earth. 
Some journeys are not what we’d choose for ourselves, however. Some journeys make us tremble. That twisting river, Life, it’s a river where fears wait beyond the bend, fears that can paralyze us. 
Paula suffered with agoraphobia early in life. 
This anxiety disorder makes you fear and avoid places or situations that might induce panic and feeling trapped, helpless, or embarrassed. 
She fought it off and in the mid 1980s went to work at an Albany bank. 
One Friday a bank robber wearing a green mask held a gun to her head. She relapsed after that. 
When Paula Deen’s husband moved her and the boys to Savannah 30 years ago, it wasn’t a happy time. 
“I thought my life was over. It. Was. Over. I was on the tail end of a 20-year ride suffering from agoraphobia. When he moved me here, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll never see my little bit of family or friends, cause I’m not leaving the house.’ ” 
Paula retreated to her bed for two months, then one day something wondrous took place. 
“It was like a miracle, Tom. I can take you to the little house over there on East 60th Street and show you right where I was standing when the Serenity Prayer went through my head.” 
It was a prayer Paula had heard for years, but that morning it clicked. 
“It made sense what I was supposed to be asking God for, so that morning I accepted my mother’s death, my daddy’s death, my death. I said, ‘Ok, God gave you today; there are no guarantees of tomorrow. You go out and live it, girl.’ ”
For 28 years Paula had been wed to her children’s father, but she realized she couldn’t fix what was wrong.  
“I started trying to figure out how I could stand on my own two feet. How I could make my own decisions.” 
Her husband gave her $200 for her income tax return. With it she started a business called the Bag Lady. “My sons pitched in, and the rest is history.”
Paula refers to these changes in fortune as God winks. 
“We have been so blessed, you know, and for my children to follow me. You see sons following their fathers all the time, but you don’t usually see them following in their mother’s footsteps.”
Next: Paula’s move to Savannah, her business successes and passion for art.

Watch Paula Deen On Evine. Find out where it airs and what time at 
www.positivelypaula.tv