I Might Just Miss It

My mother is a real estate genius. Seriously, if you need to sell a house, call this woman. Many, many years ago in a pre-New York era, I used to spend a lot of time with her looking at houses that had just come on the market in our North Chattanooga neighborhood. My mogul mother can spot a hidden gem from a mile away, and she taught me to see the often hidden potential in these historic homes. I learned to love crown moldings, built-in shelving, and other period details. And little known fact here: as a result of my early real estate explorations, I can pretty accurately estimate the year a house was built based solely on the style of the interior doorknobs.

When I was looking for my first real New York City apartment two years ago, I fell in love with my current Astoria place immediately. It had beautiful hardwood floors, unique molding, and all kinds of fabulous pre-war detailing (note: in the North, the war referenced in the term "pre-war" is World War II, not the Civil War. Shocking, I know.) Ornate glass doorknobs? 1930! Dream come true!

Perhaps had I not been paying so much attention to the damn doorknobs, I might have noticed the ear-splitting, soul-crushing rattle of the N Train right outside the window. But no, there were floor inlays to see and vintage radiator covers to examine! It wasn't until the lease had been signed, the furniture had been hauled, and I had lain down for a post-move nap that I finally noticed the thunderous subway noise. And then my neighbor's weekly band practice started, the plastic pony ride for kids at the HomeMark 99¢ Store on the corner started blaring out "It's a Small World (After All)," and the afternoon service at the Iglesia Cristiana Emmanuell across the street kicked off with some particularly loud Spanish Christian pop tunes. It was the only moment in my life when I have ever seriously contemplated jumping off a bridge.

It has been a noisy two years. The rumble of the train every three to six minutes has been the background noise to everything that has happened in this apartment. It's been the soundtrack for dinner parties, birthday parties, movie nights, and a million other gatherings. It's been my lullaby and alarm clock. On particularly cold nights, you can even hear the automated train announcements : "This is an Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard bound N Train. The next stop is Broadway." It's all maddening, and yet it's been so much a part of my daily life that I might just miss it. So on my last night with reliable internet access here in New York, it seems appropriate to post this video shot from my kitchen window during a snow storm last winter.

Here's to you, N Train. It's been real.

It's All Wrapped Up

In August 2005,  I could not wait to leave Chattanooga, TN.  I was 18, bored, and ready for a big change.  And so I moved to New York City to begin my freshman year of college.  I believed New York would make me stronger, smarter, more bold, more daring.  In many ways, it did.  In those first promising days in Morningside Heights, I also began to realize that New York would cement my "Southernness" in a way I had never expected.  Being from Tennessee suddenly became one of my defining characteristics.  Chattanooga became a never ending source of stories to share with my fascinated and shocked "Yankee" friends.  Telling tales about my single-sex high school's bizarre traditions became a favorite pastime, and I bragged more than any human being ever should about Chattanooga's famous pedestrian bridge. 


As clichéd as it is, it is completely true that it took leaving Chattanooga to make me appreciate my hometown and my Southern roots.  But I still loved New York.  I loved the crowds and the chaos and the competition, the food and the friends - I loved absolutely everything about it.  Then one day I didn't.  It was like a switch had flipped overnight, and I woke up one morning hating the sweltering subway platforms, dreading the sidewalk traffic, and crumbling at the thought of another tense interaction with a fellow New Yorker.  Just like that, I was done.  I'm sure that this process was in fact more gradual than I imagine it to be.  Maybe one day I'll stop and explain more about the last five years to you and to myself and perhaps I'll understand what changed about New York for me, but all that really matters for now is that it's June 2010, and I'm sitting in Queens surrounded by boxes.  In six days, I'm moving back to Chattanooga, TN.

How the hell did that happen?  Well, if you've ever doubted that God has a plan for your life, just let me tell you about my last six months! It might just make you a believer in that pesky, overused line from Jeremiah 29. However, there's plenty of time to tell you more about that later.  For now, it's enough to say that I couldn't be happier to be going home. 

I'm starting this little project to keep my New York friends updated about my life but also to document this transition back South for myself, to remember the events, the love, the family, the recipes, the challenges, the food, and the friends that shaped my long road back home.