I’m falling in love. I’ve never really been in love before.
At least not like this. I’m finding myself smiling at the strangest times of
day and giggling over the craziest things. The strangest thing about the whole
deal is that I feel like I’ve been blind-sided by the whole experience. They
say that it usually happens that way. You like someone well enough and end up
going out on a date. It’s not a terrible date, so you
go out on another. The
next thing you know you’re in major crush territory.
Don’t panic. There is no knew significant other in my life…
at least not in the traditional sense. I feel like I’m falling in love with my
new town. I’ve always liked Nashville well enough. I knew that I wanted to be
in a city larger than where I grew up. I also knew that I didn’t want to move
terribly far away from my family and my hometown. So I agreed to go out on a
date with Nashville.
When I moved here 7 months ago, I knew that I would enjoy
it. I wasn’t sure how long it would last or where it would lead me, and in many
ways I’m still unsure. But the more I’m here and the more I find out about my
new home, the more I love it. I find myself smiling at the Nashville skyline
every single day on my commute to work. I find myself being a tourist and
heading to places I’ve never been before, in spite of growing up less than
three hours away from here. I find myself looking for new places to eat and new
places to find theatre and music.
I’m slowly finding friends, some I’ve known online, others I
work with, and some I’ve met since I moved here. I’m learning my way around
town and I now can say I successfully travel without my GPS more often than
with it. I am learning the little things about this place. The public transit
is lacking (hey, Nashville, let’s work on this, k?), traffic during rush hour
is ridiculous, but you always know you can find some good music almost anywhere
you go and that people are generally kind-hearted and courteous. I’m learning
the best (and cheapest) places to park downtown and how when the best times are
to eat at certain restaurants. I’m finding the places that the tourists aren’t
(thanks in part to many of my new friends), and enjoying every second of it.
Over the holiday weekend Nashville had a Fourth of July
fireworks show (appropriately titled “Let Freedom Sing”) at Riverfront Park
downtown. I decide to brave the crowds (estimated afterwards to be around
215,000) and headed with a friend to see what was named by the American
Pyrotechnics Association at #2 in the nation. I’m so glad I went. It was a
spectacular show, but it was also when I realized that I was falling in love
with Nashville and WHY.
Despite the fact that there were over 200,000 people descending
on a very small area of Nashville this may have been the most laid back and
calm I’ve ever seen at a large event like this. I’ve been to a lot of things
like this in several different cities. There were police everywhere on the
Fourth, but no one seemed stressed. No one was in a hurry. No one was pushing
or being rude or inconsiderate. Even compared to CMA Music Fest, this was a
whole different creature. I chalked that up to the fact that CMA Music Fest was
mostly tourists, while the Fourth of July celebration was mostly locals.
Even more shocking was how easy and calm it was to get out
of downtown after the event. Again, there was no rushing, shoving, pushing, or
stress. Obviously it did take a little while, with so much traffic, but it
still wasn’t stressful. All in all, the experience was what sums up Nashville:
laid back with plenty of the courtesy that Southerners are known for.
I can’t tell you if my major crush on Nashville will develop
into full-fledged love (though I’m inclined to think that it’s already there).
I don’t know if it will be a long term love, or if it may fizzle out over time.
I don’t know what the future holds for me and my new beau. But I can say that I
am enjoying every second of this new relationship and all the joy it is giving
me along the way.
Author’s note: I apologize that I haven’t been blogging more
often, but the last year has been a year of changes and crazy for me. Perhaps I’ll
be able to get back into it slowly. I can promise I’ll never abandon it
completely, but I can’t promise how active I’ll be in my blogging. Either way,
I’m always around. You can email me or find me on facebook or twitter.
