Sometimes You Just Have To Run From The Lion
I moved to Nashville 3 days after my 22nd birthday. What do you have to lose at that age when you don’t have anyone that depends on you? Maybe just some self esteem when they don’t turn you into the next Faith Hill within the first 5 minutes of moving to town? I was ready to be a little bit poor and wait tables and sing in near empty rooms just for the opportunity to hear my voice in a sound system.
I loved all the phases. I especially loved my pretend hippie phase, which was mostly just wearing a bra as little as possible and singing loudly and hitching a ride by myself to Bonnaroo to impress a guy. I feel like I’ve been so many versions of myself along the way, and they all got molded into whatever I am now.
Alex and I fell in love with each other as musicians. Two separate people, with separate ambitions, from very different worlds, with enough talent (Alex most certainly with at LEAST 85% more) to boost our faith that we could make some kind of life in Nashville. It’s a normal every day thing here, but out in the real world, it’s wild. And though marriage is marriage, all of the things you hear, good and bad, and ours is no different, we do have unusual stories now that we’ve gotten out of our bubble a bit.
Is the back corner of a cafe with a good vibe not the GREATEST place in the world? Aside from the corner of my baby Glo’s nursery while she nursed herself to sleep, but I can never get those days back, so the back corner of a cafe, back to my roots and how I became me, will do. I’m typing this now from the back corner of what became my favorite cafe in Nashville- Caliber Coffee in Donelson. I’ve been a regular of many cafes in the last 12 years in Nashville- remember Edgehill Cafe?? Oh man, what a place. The best. And The Jam. These places no longer exist. But at Caliber Coffee the coffee just tastes better and the people are nice. They opened around the same time that I had Gloria, and this became my little spot as I learned to mother. I’m spending a little bit of time here before I make a run to a liquor store to grab up a bunch of empty boxes to pack up 12 years of our combined lives and move it all to Mississippi.
This is likely just a temporary time we will spend in Mississippi, we’d like to end up back in Nashville, or maybe explore a new city we’ve never lived in, but for now, Mississippi it is, and has been since September. It’s a lovely place to be.
COVID-19 impacted the music business, for we, the working class musicians, terribly. Our income since Gloria was born came entirely from Alex’s touring with The Barefoot Movement, and that was no longer able to continue for obvious reasons. We had to think about other options. The cost of living is wild in Nashville without children, but add childcare into the budget, it’s suffocating. To justify me working here in Nashville, I’d have had to make more money than what childcare costs, and that just wasn’t happening. Alex and I put our heads and degrees together and discussed other possibilities, and decided to give Hattiesburg, MS a shot for a little while. Hattiesburg is Alex’s hometown, and now, as I enter his whole childhood world, I find that he was a truly beloved member of that community before leaving for Nashville. Not surprising, as anyone who has met Alex will agree.
I meet people who knew Alex growing up and it’s never like: ‘Oh Alex, yeah! Cool guy!’. It’s usually like: ‘Oh Alex Conerly? You mean the greatest man of all existence, kindest guy I ever knew, leader of all men, smartest guy, you have no idea how many winning goals he had in soccer, by the way did you know he made varsity when he was in 7th grade, I LOVE HIM.’ So that has been really fun. Nothing better in the world than hearing people love on your loved ones.
Alex entered a program at Vanderbilt for data analytics, which is great for his smart people brain, while I was offered an opportunity at….brace yourselves…
PINE BELT CHEVROLET.
Yep, that’s me. I, a native Marylander, infiltrated the land of Mississippia to sell worker men their Silverados…and I’ll be darn….I LOVE IT. Not infrequently am I selling jacked up 2500s or 3500s diesels with a bow in my hair. I still have no idea about vehicles-just a little more than I did. I mostly just hang out with people. There’s a little bit of business talk, but while paperworks are being drawn up, I just sit at a little desk and chat with people about their lives and mine.
My first sale was Mrs. Misty’s 2021 Traverse!
On my desk, I have a plant, the only plant I’ve ever been able to keep alive. I have a lovely seashell catch-all that holds my business cards. I have a cute soap dispenser filled with unscented hand sanitizer. Behind me is a large photo of the new Tahoes and Suburbans…(have you SEEN those? They’re like the fanciest airplanes but on land.) I put two photos on my desk, too. Instant conversation starters. A cheeky Gloria in the sunshine, and a photo of Alex proposing to me on the Grand Ole Opry. People enjoy hearing about our lives in Nashville, and I love hearing about theirs. We get deep. People cry about their hard times in my office. We share laughs and stories. It’s been a very human job. I’ve met people from all over the country looking for a good deal on a vehicle. And good deals have we at the Pine Belt Chevrolet. Come on down.
Gifts from Louisiana customers!
“Sometimes You Just Have To Run From The Lion”
I have been avoiding this for so long. A little bit because I don’t want people to forget me in Nashville. But mostly because I’m too busy to take time out to explain all of this to all of the people in my life. Work hours are wild, a 2.5 year old is wild, and I’m just too tired for anything else. Being too busy to be in your own BS is actually a nice break from yourself. Alex said last night “sometimes you just have to run from the lion”, in that our ancestors didn’t have time for the anxiety and depression of these days because they just had to survive. That’s kind of our life right now, and it’s nice having a break from ME and all my annoying stuff. All of the soul searching that music forces you to do, all of the doubt-which crippled me from actually creating anything. I wouldn’t trade any bit of it, but it’s nice to be out of it for a while to see how unimportant those shitty thoughts about yourself are.
So I’m packing up and heading back to MS. I’ve done pretty well at the dealership, surprisingly. It feels basically the same as waiting tables-the hustle of it and the managing lots of moving parts at the same time, the challenging customer protests, the ‘hey y’all!’ and the ‘let me get that for you!’ and the being there for people…
Just with a WAY better paycheck.
Alex’s program is up in the middle of March. I long for that day. He works so hard and never takes time off, and whatever incredible opportunity is in store for his remarkable brain, he will have earned it. This is the wild west, seeking new opportunities for our family, our children. I think all the time about having another baby. I hope that’s in our near future. I’d like to get that process rolling as soon as we know where we’ll end up. Alex can do this line of work from anywhere, so we’ll see. It’s a big world, and we’re blessed to not be afraid of change. We shall see.
Music never goes away, don’t worry. We can do that as long as we have ears and hearts that beat.
Thinking of you all and sending my love to you, wherever you are reading this.