Nashville?

How could a Cali girl who had lived there for most of her life up and leave all of her family and friends for an unknown world called Nashville?  

Being from California and having lived there for most of my life, outside of two stints abroad, I was on the verge of turning 40 and I think God knew that I needed a deep and lasting change. I love California and will always be a Californian, but the pace of life and focus on things that were just not me was starting to wear on me a bit. Around this time of unrest, I heard a song that popped into my head about becoming a Nashville singer-songwriter - I’m not sure where it came from or how it got there but it wouldn’t stop playing. So every few months, I would hear this song about Nashville and starting a new life there, so much so, that I decided to run my first marathon in Nashville. Everything aligned for me to run the marathon in April 2019. 

There were many starts and stops along the way leading up to the marathon that almost prevented me from going but nevertheless, God kept pushing me along and I made it to Music City. When I first stepped foot in Nashville, the music scene was unbelievable. As with most folks’ journeys here, they arrive at the airport but even in the airport, I knew that this place was different. I heard the singing of the musicians at the airport bars and the strum of their acoustic guitars. I saw the Gibson guitar exhibits and the pictures of all of the famous country musicians; for someone not knowing anything about Nashville’s music scene, I knew it was special. The entire weekend in Nash was incredible, as one of my friends put it, “It’s like God is throwing a party for you!” And that He was! I went to the NFL Draft party with 600,000 other tourists, ran my marathon with the exact time that I prayed on, saw Tim McGraw kill it at a concert, visited with new friends in Franklin, went to the Frist Museum, explored the Capitol building, went to the Union Station Hotel….The list goes on but with each experience, I knew the city was drawing me here. 

When I went back home to California, my life was in a deep transition at the time and it made sense to start closing the door on some things and open the door on others. I had never pursued music before but God had a call on my life to do that, and what better place than Music City! I could have chosen Los Angeles, or even New York, but for me, God would have never gifted me an entire song about coming to Nashville and starting a new life had He not wanted me to follow that call. So here I am, a Cali girl in a Southern world trying to understand it all and immerse myself in the culture and people, and bring the best parts of Cali to them while trying to get a deep understanding of the world around me. I think at times, you’ll find my writing to have a panache all its own and that is derived from my experiences in these two unique places as they continue to shape and influence how I look at the world. And I suppose that is what life is about—taking these collections of experiences and using them to forge our own view and sharing that with the world. So on that note, I hope you’ll also like your sweet tea with a twist of lemon...just like a Cali girl living in a Southern world would drink it ;)

Michelle :)