Where I Live

If only Meg Ryan would narrate

1. I live in a city called Franklin, TN, a suburb of Nashville. I’m close enough to venture thirty minutes downtown into the crowd of tourists and taverns. The bright lights and brilliant melodies beckon to me, reminding me of my college years caught up in the bustling music scene. I graduated from Belmont University in the summer of 2009 and diligently worked my way into a publishing career on Music Row. When my first baby came along, though, his brown eyes and contagious giggles wrote a new song in my heart. I traded in my cowboy boots and skinny jeans for slippers and elastic waistbands. My loud and rowdy evenings on Broadway’s thoroughfare are now few and far between, replaced with quaint and quiet nights on the outskirts singing lullabies and rocking kids to sleep.

2. I live in a neighborhood called Falcon Creek, in a cozy, 1800 square foot house with red bricks and blue shutters. My husband and I purchased this home shortly before the arrival of our second born, simply because it was the only place we could afford in our desired school district. Perhaps it is not our dream home, with its outdated vinyl bathrooms and collapsing back deck. But it is certainly where our dreams have come true. Three little children take up every inch of space, cluttering the walls with Crayola art and littering the floor with toys, tiny reminders that this house is as much their home as it is ours.

3. I live in my black Toyota Sienna. It’s old and stained and smells faintly of fruit snacks and Goldfish. The car doors open with the click of a remote which makes for convenient loading and unloading of my kids, their belongings, and never enough toilet paper. I all too often sit in the front seat with a book in my hands while my youngest children watch shows on the screen playing above my head. We wait an hour each afternoon to pick up my oldest from school, windows cracked to let in the slight breeze that keeps us calm and comfortable in the midst of monotonous days.

4. I live in my kitchen. The central room in my house connects with the bonus room upstairs, the living rooms downstairs, and provides the only opening to the well trodden, mostly weedy backyard. Milk splatters speckle the light green walls, crumbs cover the warm wooden floors, and my painstakingly painted white cabinets are nearly always open, revealing heaps of snacks and sippy cups shoved into every nook and cranny. I cook from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., when my children finally snuggle into their beds, at which point my husband and I sneak big bowls of Bluebell ice cream from the freezer, the sugar our reward after long days with littles.

5. I live in my kingsize bed, the same bed in which I’ve made three babies. Though my husband and I replaced the mattress since we wed nearly twelve years ago, it’s impossible to lay on the sheets and not feel the imprints of our bodies. The bed is where I sleep and also where I pray. It’s where I comfort my kids through sicknesses, unsettling dreams, and scary thunderstorms. There I wake too early each morning and fall asleep too late each night, my mind seizing upon the silence. It’s where I wonder and worry about the details of my days, grateful for my simple, extraordinary life.

   

   Inspired by Nora Ephron’s “Where I Live” essay from I Feel Bad About My Neck. Click here to read the next one in the series.