Down By The Banks Of The Ohio
Angel From Montgomery was the last song I sang before I left my home. I met some friends in a dark karaoke bar that always smells like a swimming pool, to conclude a hot summer night spent standing down by the banks of the Ohio. Earlier in that night, stars shone above as we stood below, Willie Nelson leading the congregation to plead, “may the circle be unbroken,” to proclaim, “I’ll fly away,” and testify, “I saw the light.” I wandered into the karaoke bar as the night drew to an end only to confess, “to believe in this living is just such a hard way to go,” into a microphone that had seen better days, which smelled (and tasted) like sweat. Excusing myself to go pack, I bid farewell to my friends and hometown sometime after midnight – I was out the door and swept up in the current of the endless highway. I merged onto I-65 in the sober light of day the next afternoon. I was Southern-bound. The Grateful Dead were on the radio. “I’ll get up and fly away,” Jerry resounded.
Music City, USA
I unpacked my suitcase in my new bedroom in Nashville that night, terrified and exhilarated. Jerry Garcia’s familiar voice provided comfort in a strange city, as he ruminated about telling sweet lies and saying good night one last time though the radio: “to lay me down (to be with you, once more).”
I’d taken an internship in Nashville on a whim, and decided in the matter of a few weeks that it was time for me to go out and into the great wide open. I’d always been reluctant to leave my hometown, but a broken heart will drive you out onto the road like nothing else. I’d found an affordable place in Nashville on Airbnb. It seemed idyllic and beautiful, and I immediately fell in love and knew it would be a much better fit than the $1,200/month dorm rooms at Vanderbilt. I read every single review, Facebook stalked the host, consulted a few of my friends – but ultimately, I decided that I didn’t care what anybody else thought, and simply told them with unwavering conviction that I was moving to Nashville to live with strangers I found on the internet. I drove down the winding road leading to the holler that contains the six acres that the Village occupies, as my heart raced with anticipation. “If I don’t call you in the next 15 minutes, I’m dead and buried in somebody’s basement,” was the last transmission I sent to a friend before pulling up the gravel driveway for the first time.
The Village
The host came out to greet me. He introduced himself and helped me with my suitcase and gave me a tour of the land: the main house, the barn, the RV camping area occupying the space behind the barn. I quickly realized I’d be far from the only other person living there. I had a revolving door of anywhere from eight to fifteen or more roommates at any given time, travelers of all ages from all over America and the world. It wasn’t unusual for me to come into the kitchen to fetch my laundry and encounter someone I’d never met before from some country I’d never been to, like the aspiring country singer from Australia who I shared my fancy cheese with during my first week there. Believe it or not, you eventually get used to strangers walking into your home, having to introduce yourself to someone sitting on your front porch, and being awoken by roosters crowing. Everyone I described it to back home called it a commune, which I eventually stopped fighting, but seeing as how “commune” tends to have Charles Manson-y connotations, I preferred to call it a “village” since, you know, that’s less weird.
My first summer at the commune Village was the most exciting and adventure-filled summer of my life to date, but there will be plenty of time to regale you with stories of what happened in the time between my first arrival and my first departure. And really, it is as weird but also not as weird as it all sounds.
Back Home, Again
The last few weeks of my first season in Nashville was mourned by taking the long way home after my internship each day, listening to the River Jordan on repeat for 20-something miles with the windows down and a cold wind in August blowing in, driving down a two-lane highway until the sun went down, with an aching feeling that this beautiful summer of waking up and not knowing which city I was in was about to come to an end.
It’s been exactly five months since Paradise has been my mailing address and I feel this rest has been needed, if you can call driving straight through from sunrise to sunset to New York and walking its streets until my feet bled, finding myself in Chicago from time to time and being in Nashville every other weekend a “rest.” I like to believe that when last summer faded into fall, it was only just the beginning, not the end.
