on returning home from nashville

Before we left Nashville, we stopped to admire Reese Witherspoon’s house.  Sadly we couldn’t see Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s home because it was in a gated community.

I sent this postcard home to both of us from Nashville.

I apologize for my atrocious handwriting, but when I write these postcards, I’m usually writing them hurriedly and on the go.  My intention was to write about how I see my life from a faraway place.

The best thing I brought home upon our return from Nashville was less snobbishness about and even an appreciation for country music and southern twangs. Our first night in our Airbnb, we watched a Dolly Parton movie in which Dolly’s family and their southern accents echoed the voice of 9-year-old Starla Claudelle in the book I was reading, Whistling Past the Graveyard.  We also heard this southern accent on the streets and in the restaurants of Nashville, as well as in the country songs. It suddenly took on a new charm.

I had a bit of a southern accent myself growing up in southern Virginia, but when I moved to Idaho for four years in 1980, people made so much fun of my “ya’ll” that I dropped it quickly from my vocabulary. Living in Northern Virginia has eliminated all traces, I think, of my southern accent.

I learned so much about the history of country music, listening to sound bites at the museums plus singing along to my Nashville playlist.  Some songs are sad, some funny, some are full of yearning.  All evoke the human condition and speak to feelings we carry around in our hearts.

When we returned home, we watched the 2005 movie, Walk the Line, about Johnny Cash’s early life. Johnny Cash is played by Joaquin Phoenix and June Carter by Reese Witherspoon.  We enjoyed watching and extending our appreciation of Johnny Cash after visiting the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville.

We also started watching the 2012-2018 TV series, Nashville, all about people trying to make it big in the music industry, and people who are already big name singers. It is a bit soap opera-ish, but the characters are intriguing and the show has some fabulous country songs.  Every time we watch an episode, I add more phenomenal tunes to my Nashville playlist.

We grow every time we travel, and in this case, my world expanded.  I brought home a  new appreciation for a sub-culture of America that I’d never bothered to understand before.  Isn’t this what travel does, opening the boundaries we’ve created between us and them?

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“ON RETURNING HOME” INVITATION: I invite you to write a 500-750 word (or less) post on your own blog about returning home from one particular destination or, alternately, from a long journey encompassing many stops.  How do you linger over your wanderings and create something from them?  How have you changed? Feel free to address any aspect of your journey and how it influences you upon your return. If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments.

For some ideas on this, you can check out the original post about this subject: on returning home.

Include the link in the comments below by Sunday, June 3 at 1:00 p.m. EST.  When I write my post in response to this challenge on Monday, June 4, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation on the first Monday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired!

• When Carol, The Eternal Traveler, returns home from a journey, she writes a fun poetic overview of the loos she encountered along the way.
  • A Loo With a View – The English Edition
• Meg, of Warsaw 2018, writes about the disorientation of returning to her second home in Warsaw for a surprise visit to her family.  Being her second home, she describes it as “both a leaving home and a returning home.”
  • Finding my way around

Thanks to all of you who wrote posts about “on returning home.” 🙂