I spoke with a woman recently about how I wasn't crazy about how much Nashville has grown. As I bagged her stuff she started telling me if there's no growth, people won't want to stay. I agreed. I do think that statement is true. She kept going. My responses waned but her lecture didn't. I understand what she was trying to tell me but I also felt semi-attacked by her tone and word choice. Nothing was threatening, but I felt as if I was being talked down to because I am a young woman. A young woman who has lived in the Nashville area for twenty-three years. A young woman who has experienced more of Nashville and Tennessee than she has in her short few years here.
Each word that spilled from her lips in her northern accent felt like punches to my gut.
Maybe Nashville just isn't for me.
I've seen the open skyline become crowded. I've seen "hip" restaurants pop up in old landmarks. I've seen scooters clutter the sidewalks. I've seen those gates from CMA Fest permanently stay up on Broadway to make more room for pedestrians clinking-n-clanking in their cowboy boots. I've seen more murals and photo ops. I've been in crowds pushing to the front at a free concert just to be closer even though they showed up later than everyone else. I've seen old, lively parts of town become famished. Beautiful buildings deteriorating while trendy restaurants are cluttered with millennials and out-of-towners. I've seen random houses and apartment buildings pop up beside historical homes. I've seen two random houses plopped beside my Granny's yard. The beloved yard we used to play baseball in. I've seen Nashville mentioned on almost every show and movie. I've seen Nashville become glitzy. I mention I'm from here and it's like I am a rare animal.
I am happy to see growth. I am happy that people love it here and find solace in this once-little town.
Yet... the solace I used to find here is gone.
I remember when going downtown felt like a special occasion. I used to get so excited to be downtown. My first concert at Gaylord Entertainment Center. Driving down 65 and staring at the Batman building. Eyes agog. I volunteered at the Frist for a couple years. I drove by enormous construction on a hotel every single day. That once open part of town now shaded by a shiny silver hotel. It has become a tiny, maybe evil, game for me to try to spot the tourist. Usually cowboy boots and a dress. Now it's even easier because they're usually on a scooter or all dressed the same. I roll my eyes as drunk women shout from a pedal tavern when I'm just trying to drive home from a nearly 9-hour retail work day.
I say all of this to say- Nashville will always be home. It will always have some sort of spark for me. (Though I do believe working down there nearly every day for the past year has changed my excitement about the city.) I just don't know if I want it to be my forever home. I love driving around finding new places. But I don't feel like I fit in to the "new crowd." Maybe this is also coming from a weird, elderly mentality I have about newness. Waving my cane at the changes as my house coat drapes over my weak shoulders. A "get off my lawn" kinda thing. I drive around sometimes and just feel like this is not where I am meant to be. I can't see myself visiting the local haunts and dives. The ones I have enjoyed haven't been located directly downtown. There's something about being in that crowd downtown that makes me feel so alone. No one notices me but I feel like an obnoxious neon sign, flashing and flashing until I feel like I'm okay again.
And don't get me wrong, I still enjoy being downtown and hanging out finding new places. The Ryman and the Frist are my two most favorite places on this entire universe. But... I just don't feel like I belong.
I grew up thinking I should be in California. Hollywood. Los Angeles. Among the stars. I thought I would be a movie star, a singer, an actress. All three! Throwing my feather boa over my shoulder while I peer at the photographers over pink-tinted, frameless, rhinestone sunglasses. Ever since I hopped off the plane at LAX*, there was an overwhelming sense of "you are home." I never felt like a tourist. I never felt out of place. I felt like I was where I always dreamed of being. Every day since I've been gone I think about it. Those endless horizons. The sun and the gargantuan billboards like posters in a movie theater. If money wasn't an issue I would be writing this there right now. Maybe these feelings come from having a boyfriend from there, and my longing to see him for more than a few times a year. But then the memory of waking up to the view of houses on hills surrounded by lush trees envelops my senses. How peaceful that
was.
My ideal place is somewhere with trees. Green grass. Open spaces. Close enough to the city but far enough to take a breath from the bustle. I had someone tell me that maybe the reason I felt so at ease in LA was that there are literally so many people there, no one notices you. You don't feel judged because no one is paying attention to you. That sense of privacy in a crowd is oddly liberating. I don't feel that in Nashville. I feel like I am being stared at. No one stared in LA. I was one of them. Here, I feel like there are still eccentricities about me that people can't figure out.
And this could be all in my head. Maybe I'm talking out of my back end and I should wipe it and flush it and move on.
I want to feel the happiness I see other people feel while in Nashville. I don't want to feel like a foreigner in my own town.
Until then, I'm still a native Nashvillian with a California Soul.
*if you got this reference, I love you.
