Since moving to Virginia, I have not been homesick...until now.
Just a few short weeks ago while home on Spring Break I drove the streets of Nashville, soaking in the city that has been my home since I was five years old. I drove the back roads from Columbia, Spring Hill and Thompson Station where I've lived since 2001, to Dickson, Kingston Springs, Pegram, and Bellevue where I spent most of my childhood. I drove through Belle Meade, West End, by Belmont, my alma mater and all around downtown Nashville. I ate dinner at Opryland.
Here, was the feeling of home. I've lived in Hendersonville, Bellevue, Ashland City and Columbia...almost every side of the city. I've gone to school in Whites Creek, Columbia and Nashville. I've been part of churches in Goodlettsville, Bellevue, Franklin, Thompson Station and Columbia. I have friends and family members in every part of Middle Tennessee, from Springfield to Pulaski, Smithville to Centerville. This is my city. These are my family.
As I drove a certain, unexplainable sensation arose in me, as though this time of driving the city, reliving the memories of my past was something important. Something I'd never be able to get back. How was I to know how real that would prove to be?
Many of these places now sit under feet of water. Many of them will never be recovered. Many of them are relegated forever to the halls of memory. But there is one thing, the most important thing, that rises to the surface of the water and stands as proudly and as firmly as it ever has...the spirit of Nashville herself.
Nashville is a community of Faith, and of family. The "small town, big city" opens her doors to everyone. She is the city where people with dreams too big for anywhere else come to fit in. Here country music stars, college students, and down home boys sit in the same Starbucks on Friday night and the same pew on Sunday morning. Here everybody knows "somebody" because everybody is somebody.
There are things we know as a city.
You don't talk bad about anybody because the guy sitting behind you probably knows that guy. You don't chase down celebrities for their autograph, they're just people.
We have the best music shows anywhere, hands down. Because let's face it, a show in Nashville is like jamming with friends.
The Loveless Cafe still has the best biscuits in town.
One day our Titans will win a Super Bowl.
You wave to people as you drive past them, hold open doors, ask people how they're doing, look people in the eye when you give them a firm handshake, say "yes ma'am", and you always drive like a crazy person during rush hour.
There's one more thing we know: we take care of our own. So it is not surprising to those of us from Music City to see each other banding together, unconcerned whether the outside world pays any mind to our trials (But we sure do appreciate y'all who have. Welcome to the family.) We are each other's Good Samaritans. We are our brother's keepers. By God's grace, like a Phoenix from the ashes "The Athens of the South" will rise as a testimony of love for one another. So, while I am stranded miles away, missing you, unable yet to put my hands to work for my city I will lift my voice and my prayers in solidarity with my fellow Nashvillians.
WE ARE NASHVILLE.
