I heart Nashville.

This month marks eight years since I first arrived in Nashville. On August 18, 2002, my parents and I drove away from our gray and white house on Orkney Drive and began our 2,222.6 mile journey to Tennessee. Stuffed in the backseat with every single one of my earthly belongings, I spent the next three long days of driving preparing myself for what was about to happen. I remember being so excited about college that if someone pricked me with a needle I probably would have burst. But I also remember thinking to myself, “Tennessee?? You have got to be insane!” and having to muster up every ounce of courage I had not to panic and run back into the safe arms of my mother. Three days on 1-40 with my parents (you know I love you) quickly cured me of any desire to NOT go 2,222.6 miles away and soon enough we arrived at Lipscomb with my beach-themed dorm room decorations (my hometown is nowhere near a beach) and the Cowboy hat I was sure to buy so that I would fit in with everyone at school.

Little did I know then how much that school and that city would change my life forever (and that I would wear that cowboy hat once during four years of college). I never thought I’d feel at home in any other city but Patterson, but here I stand eight years later feeling as though I’ve always belonged here (shhhh- just don’t tell my mom).

So to commemorate this milestone, I’ve decided to give you a top-10 list of why I heart Nashville, Tennessee.

10. Small town feel (and it’s just so stinkin’ cool). I know this will be hard to believe coming from California and all, but before I came to Nashville I had only driven on the interstate maybe three times. There was simply never any reason to. If we needed to go to the mall, or Walmart or movie theater, (or anything, really), we had to drive about 20 minutes on backroads through dairies and orchards. Needless to say, I thought coming to Nashville would be overwhelming, but it simply does not feel like a big city. Even standing on 2nd Avenue in the middle of downtown, Nashville just feels like a small town masquerading as a big one. And I wish I could say this more eloquently- but there’s just so many stinkin’ cool things to do in this city, and I feel as though I’ve only discovered a fraction of them. Here’s my Nashville favorites list*:

-coffee and oatmeal or a fun salad at Frothy Monkey
-reading and sipping coffee at Fido (this is where I am currently, typing away on my computer)
-shopping around at Pangea
-jogging down Belmont boulevard starting at Lipscomb University, going down to the Athlete’s House and back
-early Saturday morning breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes at Pancake Pantry (warning: must nap afterwards)
-getting a pistachio flavored popsicle from Las Paletas on a super hot summer day
-yoga classes at Sanctuary for Yoga at sunset
-lunch at Bread & Co. consisting of the “Iroquois” sandwich and the best fruit tea that will ever touch your lips
-breakfast at Loveless Cafe, complete with their famous biscuits
-coconut chicken from Copper Kettle

*Feel free to let me know of great things I’m missing out on, I’m always open to discovering new places!

9. Nature. My first few months in Nashville, I felt claustrophobic. There were so many trees that I feared they were going to swallow me up. To me, a girl from the wide open spaces of the valley, where the hills are golden (a nice way to say covered in dead grass), Nashville might as well have been the rain forest. And as if the sheer amount of green all around isn’t wild enough- the trees literally come alive in the evening with the sound of bugs and frogs and God-knows-what-else chirping and buzzing. Over the years (and despite the humidity) I’ve come to love all the green and even find going to sleep to the cacophony of creatures pulsating within the trees strangely comforting. I’ve also fallen madly in love with Southern rain. If Southern rain were Niagara Falls, California rain would be infant baptism. I remember seeing scenes in movies with pouring rain and thinking, “Seriously?! That rain looks so unrealistic, who’s going to believe that’s real rain?!” And then I experienced my first hit-you-out-of-nowhere southern downpour. “Oooooooh, so this is real rain.” I have always loved the way it rains in the South; so inconveniently purifying.

8. Lightning bugs. Now, I know Nashville is not the only place with lightning bugs, but I saw them here for the first time. And I know this is a bold statement, but second only to the beach- I honestly believe lightning bugs could be the most beautiful thing in all of creation. They absolutely mesmerize me. Pre-Nashville, the closest thing I’d ever seen to real lightning bugs were the fiber-optic lights attached to swinging wires in the “bayou” on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. And even the fake ones mesmerized me. To this day you can find my face pressed to the window at dusk in utter amazement at my breathtaking sparkly friends. They’re the only bug I won’t swat away when they come near me. It’s as though there is something magical, almost holy about them. They are bugs that LIGHT UP! Unbelievable.

7. Celebrity sightings. Unlike what I imagine it’s like in Los Angeles with its crazy, intrusive paparazzi, I’ve always been so proud of the way Nashville treats its celebrities. We’ll notice them, maybe giggle and text our friends, or if we’re really bold we’ll ask to take a picture with them, but besides that we seem to let them go about a normal life. I love seeing celebrities out and about in Nashville because it makes me feel like we have something in common. “Oh, you love Nashville too? Great! We should be friends.” Who I’ve seen: Alan Jackson at Cracker Barrel, Big Kenny (from Big and Rich) in traffic on Woodmont, Nicole Kidman at Starbucks, Dierks Bentley, Sara Evans, Scott Hamilton, Lionel Richie, Vince Gill, Phil Vassar, Emy Lou Harris, and the best celebrity sighting of them all: George Jones standing in front of us in line for candy at the movies.

6. Southern Culture. Before college, I’d never heard a southern accent, known anyone with two first names, or eaten fried okra. The first time someone called me a Yankee for my accent, I thought they were talking about the New York baseball team. I learned that I had very generic grandparents because their names weren’t Meemaw, Pappaw, Daddy Joe or something strange like that. After arriving in Nashville, I also had to quickly teach myself to say yes ma’am and yes sir, and when I accidentally say it to people in California they almost always get offended- as though I’m calling them old. The list of foreign Southern-isms could go on and on, but the truth of the matter is that all these things that I once considered strange I now find endearing. To me, Southern culture is like most grandmothers: warm, welcoming, but just a little on the quirky side.

5. Baja Burrito. Baja and I have had a passionate love affair for many years now. I order the same thing every time- a chicken burrito and chips with an UNGODLY amount of their hot salsa. None of this wimpy mild salsa or silly pineapple salsa- I’m a hot salsa girl all the way. So yummy and spicy and fresh. I could swim in the stuff, like Scrooge-McDuck-style in his big vault of gold coins.

4. Country music. We all have those things about ourselves that we couldn’t change even if we wanted to; something so inborn, it’s as much a part of us as our left arm. Country music is that thing for me. It awakens my soul. Don’t ask me how a girl from California happens upon country music, but somehow at the age of ten a George Strait tape appeared in my Walkman and it was love at first slide of the steel guitar. So it’s only fitting that I ended up in Nashville, where five of my six radio pre-sets in my car can be country music and it’s always easy to find tickets to my favorite shows. And just so it’s clear- I am not an advocate of the cheesy country songs that contain words like badonkadonk or lyrics about thinking someone’s tractor is sexy. But I do LOVE songs about cheatin’ and drinkin’ and lyin’, even though, again, these aren’t things I advocate. If you’d like an example of what I consider to be a brilliantly written country song, check out the second verse of Randy Houser’s song called “Anything Goes.” Good. Ol'. Country.

3. My job & the Lipscomb community. I’ve worked enough lousy jobs to know that if you like the majority of the people you work with on a daily basis, you are pretty lucky. And if your boss is not a total I-want-to-punch-you-in-face-you’re-so-mean kind of a person, you’re even luckier. So I know how rare of a situation I am in to literally adore all the people I spend eight hours with every day at work in addition to having an incredible boss. It’s not that we all don’t have our moody days, but it’s never something that we can’t laugh about later. Somehow I manage to get work done even though some days it feels like all I’ve done is giggle with (or at) my co-workers all day long. I also consider myself incredibly blessed to be part of the Lipscomb community. No institution is perfect, and we’re not the exception, but I’m just not convinced you could find a more generous or loving community of people who are always trying to be better, do more in the community, and push its students to know Christ on a deeper level. And no, they didn’t pay me to say that.

2. Friends. I won’t really elaborate on this one. I will only say that the best types of friends are the one who will get on their hands and knees and pray with you, who will call you out when you need to be called out, and who will drop everything to go eat frozen yogurt with you. I have been blessed to find friends like this here, and they are more than worth having to live through the sticky humidity, the bone-chilling cold in the winter, and the ten hour drive to the nearest beach.

1. My church family. If I were to describe my church family at Ethos in one word it would be real. Not that other churches aren’t real, it’s just that this is what I most appreciate about Ethos. I wholeheartedly believe that redemption begins when we’re able to look someone we love in the eye and confess our struggles to them. I feel very blessed to be a part of a community where I am safe to confess my faults without fear of alienation. What I’ve found in this community is a group of imperfect people simply in love with their God. We don’t always know exactly how to go about it- but one step at a time and through trial and error- we’re learning what it means to be Christ in our city and in this world. Every Sunday evening I find myself in the middle of a crowd of people I love, who are singing at the tops of their lungs in praise to God, and once again I’m reminded that I’m not alone in this world and that even when I mess up- I have brothers and sisters who will pick me up. My church family inspires me to be bolder with my faith, to read the Word as much as I can, and to love people even when it’s difficult or messy. I've seen God change and heal so many lives (mine included) through this family and I get so ridiculously excited to think about what the future will bring. This is the group of people I plan to serve along side for years and years to come, the people I plan to grow with, cry with, raise all of our kids with, and most importantly these are the people I want by my side as we tell the world about Christ. I'd love for you to join us. (ethoslove.com)


Did I leave anything out? Why do you heart Nashville?