Nashville Love

Y’all, something happened on my way to work this morning. I realized that I love this city. I got a little choked up about it, coming down West End, seeing the hilly street descending down towards the ever-present Batman building.

I’ve never been in love with a place before. I’ve never lived any place long enough to really get to know it well enough to know what falling in love with it could be like. But this morning, I realized that I could have a very happy life if all my trips ended up with me back here.

I mean, before today, there have been lots of things about Nashville that I love–the park, the city cemetery, the Shelby Bottoms greenway, the sound of the interstate like my very own river and the trains like barges around me, my friends, my job, the fountain in Bicentennial Park, the honky-tonks down on lower Broad, the millions of back ways to get places–but finally I feel like this is my home.

I’m getting a little emotional even typing that. I’ve never had a home town before. I’ve never been from some place. But I’ve been here six years, which makes it the second longest I’ve ever lived some place.

I’ve grown attached.

It’s a weird feeling, to belong to a place. I feel like I should go out and drive around more often, to keep track of how things are and how they’re changing. Or that I should join a club or buy season tickets to something. I don’t know. It’s all new.

But it’s nice.

A False Fall

Mrs. Wigglebottom and I went out for our regular walk this morning.

It was very creepy.

Finally, there’s a little coolness in the morning air. Not enough to make you comfortable, but enough to reassure you that autumn is coming. The other sad reminder is that the trees have already begun to let go of their leaves.

I hear that other parts of town are getting rain, but all we’ve been getting is the menacing thunder. We’ve had brown grass for weeks, but now it’s starting to show on the trees. Many of them are marbled with brown leaves. Some are dropping leaves. The ones that are still green are curled and dry. The magnolias are stressed and even the evergreens are drooping.

This morning was the first time all summer that we weren’t surrounded by the noises of birds and bugs chirping and humming. The whole neighborhood was eerily quiet and Mrs. Wigglebottom and I both were on edge.

It got me wondering if trees pray–for rain or for sunshine or for fair weather. And I guess if a prayer is a hope you can’t do anything about but articulate, then each crunchy leaf we stepped on today was a desperate prayer for an end to hot and dry.