waves away

The road from Nashville to Memphis was almost unremarkable, flanked by bare gray forests and barely rolling hills. An apt reflective canvas, probably, for moving across the first road that took me past the Mississippi , that showed me south. Almost 15 years further along in life, here I was riding backwards. And where was all the lush green and hallowed ground of my Highway 40 memory? Dormant? Further east? Fabricated? It just now occurred to me that I would spend the next two days in my own Matrix. One corroboration -- it was still a three-hour tour, and a swift one with my sister behind the wheel. She took one work call, and then we talked about old friends and future vacations. Approaching the city, much as we had on arrival in Nashville , we merged incorrectly at a freeway interchange; missing our downtown exit. We drove a full circuit around Memphis before accessing our Beale Street portal, but then Katie found some Marc Cohn on her phone so we could cruise in like bona f...

A long time ago I drove all the way across Tennessee . Afterwards I thought I knew a lot about it, but I didn't even know it had the distinction of bordering more states than any other except Missouri , with which it is tied. I've been through seven of the eight states Tennessee borders, but I didn't have this fun fact in my pocket until it was put there by a tour guide cousin in Nashville just weeks ago. Three trips to Tennessee behind me now, I hardly know anything.  Technically it's not my own but my sister's cousins who live in Nashville ; technically my sister and I have different moms, and it's hers whose niece has settled in Tennessee . But we like moving beyond labels in this mixed family, so my sister's cousins invited us both to stay with them for a few days. I'd only stopped in Nashville long enough to eat a sack of White Castle burgers, that long time ago. I wanted to see more, to fit a missing piece into my Southern puzzle, and my...