art on the wall at the local pizza place
I realized as I was about to add a new post last night that pretty much the only thing I ever blog about anymore is food. Or my neighborhood. Or food in my neighborhood.
I always knew I was meant to end up in Nashville, that’s true. I lived 40ish miles south of Nashville for my first few years in Tennessee and I thought my life could never get better. But as I started looking for a place in the city, I found myself increasingly drawn to the east side. There were quite a few reasons for that, but the biggest reason of all didn’t occur to me until today.
Every part of Nashville feels relatively homey. The different neighborhoods aren’t terribly spread out… but most of them are very developed and overrun with tons of people.
The thing is, I absolutely love living in the city. I love all there is to do and eat and all the people I’m so close to and I love that so many other people see my city as a travel destination… It’s beautiful. But I grew up in small town USA and I have been made to be a somewhat awkward and uncomfortable city girl for the past 8 years of my life.
My neighborhood is 5 minutes from downtown Nashville, yes. But it feels like my tiny home town. The coffee shops are local, the pizza place is local, there’s one decent grocery store, there’s a little house of music, and everything is in biking distance (once I get a bike, that is). Everybody here loves everybody else. We know each other… even those of us who don’t really know each other.
This part of town feels manageable to me. There’s already all of this stuff to do, and I feel like if I ever found anything might be missing, someone little like me could still make it happen. Big business and industry don’t have much of a place over here… this is musician, artist, creative friendly.
Some things are meant to be, and this neighborhood and me are stuck like glue.
