Proximity | three writers, two countries, one hour

T

en years ago, when I said I’d be leaving the small town where I’d grown up for Atlanta, people would say, “Oh, Atlanta’s just awful. Why would you ever want to live there?”

At twenty-two, I didn’t know why I wanted to do anything.  All I knew was that I wanted to live somewhere other than Glade Spring, Virginia — in a place where no one knew me and where I was no longer under our small community’s watchful eye.  Plus, I wondered if my small town’s naysayers had ever been anywhere other than the next county over, and I liked to think I knew better.

But I was wrong.  My first year in Atlanta was awful.

I have always considered myself as someone who’s somewhat homegrown: I am a backyard garden tomato, with deep roots in good soil and Farmer’s Market pride. And in the beginning, Atlanta did not couple well with this; I was neither fancy enough nor worried about being fancy enough for the relentless city life.

I despised Atlanta’s society; the traffic was as maddening as it was terrifying; the city parks held no comparison to Virginia farmland; the people — all strangers — were so utterly absorbed in their own lives that I wondered if I would ever make new friends, or if I would find anyone I even wanted to be friends with in the first place.

But then I fell in love with a local who won me over to Atlanta with his passion for his home town, his connection with a thoughtful community of friends, and his insistence that even a homegrown girl like me had a welcome place in the city.

Slowly, life revised the blueprint I’d made for it, and instead of ending up in a smaller town, as I’d imagined, I put down new roots in Atlanta.

The transition was an uneasy one, but over the course of ten years I carved out my own niche in Atlanta, with my backyard tomato of a personality pretty much intact.  Our friends here have grown to feel like family, the family you want to have over to dinner, each of whom is likely to watch closely over Claire’s missteps and achievements with the same interest and engagement I felt in my tiny, rural home town.

But recently, my husband, Andrew, and I found ourselves at a crossroads: he had been presented with the opportunity for promotion – something of a miracle in today’s economy – but the job, so well suited to him it appeared to have been custom-made, was not in Atlanta.

It was in Nashville, a city we have both loved from a distance, but where we never truly thought we’d move.

We had, without even knowing it, begun making assumptions about the forever-life we were making in Atlanta, and the comfort in that was powerful.  But as the months progressed and  Andrew’s talks at work grew more serious, we began to pry our fingers from the vision we’d cast for our future.  And as we loosened our grasp on what we thought was meant to be, the promise of Nashville — a new adventure, a fresh start — held.

Ten days ago, Andrew, Claire, Ivy (the dog) and I moved to a cozy bungalow in West Nashville.  Life moves more slowly here, that much we can see.  And there is green space aplenty, and people who walk up the street just because they saw the moving boxes and wanted to say hello.  The few friends we already had in Nashville have checked in thoughtfully, arriving at our doorstep with wine and fruit tea and, when there was absolutely nothing in the fridge, milk for Claire.  A farmer’s market sets up shop in the park across the way, and Ivy, our four year old golden, is acting more puppy-like than she has in years.  Andrew’s work is just the professional upgrade — if not more of one — that we thought it would be.  He bolts out of bed at six each morning, eager for the day.

We are all keen for this adventure, but our roots are still exposed, our broader family and identity still in Atlanta.  Now, the meaning of what it is to be “homegrown” has changed for me yet again; now there is a part of me that is Atlantan, and different here, in this smaller town, because of that.

What that means is yet to be seen, but I don’t fear it; Nashville is a friendlier place for transplants, and, after all, I’m at home with my family.   Regardless of my own feelings of uprootedness and occasional chaos, Proximity will go with me on this new adventure in one of the American South’s best cities.   I hope you’ll come along.

Photo Credit: Lastonein