A Bright Lights Big City Serenade...

A Bright Lights Big City Serenade...

 

Growing up in the burbs with all its comfort and conformity can be stifling. Same cul de sac, same neighbors, same cycles of life can leave one yearning for more, yet what that more is is rarely clear. Just that there's more to life than the old neighborhood and often that more resides squarely in the heart of our vast country's great cities.

 

The mystery of our urban centers. Even now as an adult, I'm still struck by the first distant glimpse of a majestic high rise. But as a kid? I still remember walking the streets of Manhattan staring up at the Empire State Building, gob struck at the rows and rows of skyscrapers marveling at the shapes and forms as I walked straight into a parking meter.

 

Downtown. It's where history happened. It's where history is made today. Our cultural and economic centers, human menageries of cultures and cliques, the proverbial melting pot, experiments in communal living. Every time I visit a new city I'm fascinated by how they work, how alive and thriving our great metropolitan spaces can be.

 

I moved to middle Tennessee a few years back (myself and thousands of others). Nashville, aka Music City, is the area's main hub. A music lover I am, I found myself a few times a week carousing the downtown haunts of the greater Nashville music scene. So fascinating, so much energy. The tension in the air. Who were those suited gentlemen in the back, and was this the performance where an artist got discovered. Something so inspiring and electric being among the hungry.

 

Invariably the inconvenience of living in the burbs while constantly seeking culture arises, leading to the inevitable question. Wouldn't it be cool if we lived downtown? And as our excitement mounted, as is often the case, the realities of life get in the way of adventure, our inner city dreams always seeming a high rise too far.

 

But maybe not. Last year, the wife and I got to looking around, finding the tallest building in Nashville, with views and amenities to drop the jaw. A couple tours and talks later, there we were, signing a lease on the 27th floor of our adopted hometown's most styling building with all the trimmings. For weeks on end, we would hold court at our window, pinching ourselves it wasn't all a dream. I mean, from our humble suburban upbringings, How does one get there from here?

 

But there we were and what an experience. To have so much culture right out your front door. But downtown Nashville culture ain't like all your other great cities. Surely there's great art music food around nearly every corner, but downtown Nashville is all about Broadway, a confluence of Honky Tonks and Dives, belting out your favorite tunes all hours of the day and night. Ten years ago Broadway as it sits today wasn't happening. Now it's an unrivaled tourism mega-force. Who could ever have imagined a sprawling emerging modern city could be built on the backs of bar bands playing cover tunes. One of the great mysteries of modern urban growth for sure.

 

But Broadway is undefeated. In just my brief time in Middle Tennessee, we've seen our share of tragedy. Tornadoes, floods, and a disturbing downtown Christmas bombing forced even the busiest among us to pause and take a moment to reflect. But not Broadway. No matter the calamity, there you'll see early the next morning on a side street Ashley and Bethany pumping the pedal cart hard while banging out the Shania with nary a worry in the world. The juxtaposition of how carefree Nashville's revelers can appear will forever be jarring.

 

And revelry they do. On any given night, or morning, there they are. Musicians from all high banging out the same tunes, (that fiddle solo in the Devil Went Down To Georgia gonna cost you though) giving the revelers what they want. Doesn't matter how many times they've heard the same song, it just hits different hearing it played live on Broadway with your ride or die crew.

 

And the Bridesmaids, what a force of nature they are. Straddling that line of obliviousness and oblivion, they never miss a step. All booted and bedazzled, they dance in lockstep, their moves in perfect sync. But the singing, it's like they're all auditioning, channeling that Taylor Swift Bluebird Cafe moment. Broadway, at its most happening a mic-less karaoke bar, the gals belting out verse and chorus as if they penned the hits themselves. It's an unsettling nature, everybody knowing all the words, they'd be more interesting if they didn't.

 

But as with great cities, an imbalance evolves. Old Nashville has been pushed aside, overtaken by the economic juggernaut of destination location tourism. Where do they all come from? The people watching, a convention of good ole boys, failed sons and sadly beautiful bridesmaids (maybe next time kid) carrying an hour's wage in their hands in the form of another aluminum Tall Boy. It's a site that truly has to be seen live. I've never seen anything like it in all my life. 

 

But roots run deep. The DNA of greenery and space lodged firmly in my wife and my upbringing. So back to the burbs we go, literally right to the edge of Farmville with a neighbor's chicken coop clearly visible from our back patio. No longer awakened by the early morning sirens of an EMT, we're now awakened by a crooning rooster, nature's own bar band. Oddly, nothing has ever sounded so uncommonly soothing. Will we get the stir of an itch in time for more? Only time will tell.

 

But most importantly, as we enter the 4th quarter of life, we checked a box. An important box. We took a chance, got out of our bubble, opting to live experimentally. And I'm so grateful we did. It would have eaten at us for years if we hadn't.

 

So if you're wondering about a different life, of taking a leap from the comforts and conformity of your routinized lives, I couldn't recommend taking the leap to a downtown near you. We enjoyed it immensely and will definitely miss it.