Like many girls of my generation in the rural South, I learned every form of handwork my grandmother or great-grandmother could teach me: sewing, knitting, crocheting, quilting. I even learned to tat, a kind of handwork done with a tiny shuttle that turns thread into lace. Some of my happiest memories are of sitting on the edge of my great-grandmother’s bed, our heads bent together as she pulled out my mangled stitches. (more….)
The 111th General Assembly of Tennessee convened on Jan. 8, and it will disperse on April 26, not a moment too soon. Already, its Republican supermajority has introduced bills that would further weaken lax gun laws, increase campaign-donation limits and undermine a progressive Nashville law passed by public referendum, among other assaults on democracy and good sense. (more….)
In the far northwest corner of Tennessee, just this side of the Mississippi River, lies a landscape like no other. Reelfoot Lake is less a lake than a system of bayous, creeks and swampland connected by areas of shallow open water. It was created in the winter of 1811-1812 when a series of powerful earthquakes and aftershocks caused 15,000 acres of cypress forest to sink. The waters of the Mississippi River rushed into the depression. (more….)
When my mother died in 2012, she left behind a huge collection of memorabilia. Not just the usual love letters, family photographs and cherished recipe cards but also random items that almost no one else bothers to save. Things that meant something to her but whose meaning she never explained to me. (more….)
The scruffy little dog of indeterminate origin — she’s either a beagle mix or a terrier mix, depending on which veterinarian is guessing — reaches the end of the driveway and sits down. A gentle tug on the leash merely inspires the dog to lower herself completely, her face on her front paws. A treat offered in exchange for progress on this “walk” yields no better results. (more….)
I am not a musician, or even an aspiring musician, but I moved to Nashville in 1987 because of music. One of my college roommates was in graduate school at Vanderbilt and invited me to visit, and my grad school boyfriend tagged along. Haywood is a picker himself, and he expected to fall in love with Music City; he even packed his résumé. (more….)
It would be fair to call my home décor aesthetic the opposite of a Pottery Barn catalog. In theory, I would love to live in a Pottery Barn catalog, but in practice, I’m too much of a pack rat to be comfortable among spare furnishings in rich earth tones. Our house looks like an ongoing estate sale. (more….)
In the search for comfort in the face of so many 21st-century dangers — to democracy in the age of fake news, to the natural world in the age of climate change — I don’t normally think of winter as offering much in the way of consolation. (more….)
All fall, in random hours, I’ve been looking for my great-grandmother’s recipe for corn cakes. I have a perfectly serviceable recipe for everyday cornbread, but it’s nothing like those corn cakes I find myself returning to in memory. (more….)
Leaf blowers are like giant whining insects that have moved into your skull. They are swarming just behind your eyes, drilling deep inside your teeth. Leaf blowers have ruined autumn with their insistent whine and their noxious fumes, and they are everywhere. (more….)
