Opening Salvo: My Reverse-Walden

What do you get when you cross a wood nymph with a southern belle?

What happens when you take a girl from a rural homestead in New England, and drop her into a southern city, the capital of country? I happen. 
The late-night lights from Nashville’s honky tonk bars and strip clubs immediately blinded me in the jump from quiet, pristine forest life into the sprawl city famous for its music. But it is here that I will find myself.

Yes, I am a wood nymph. Not in the ordinary sense of a fairy creature, but in my roots. I have a scar on my right middle finger from a fern accident. Yes, that’s right; a fern hurt me. Around the age of 5, I discovered the joy of picking and plucking the delicate ferns in the woods around my house. They were soft and fun to play with. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand that wood ferns (they’re a darker green) had thick stems. When I couldn’t break the stem, I simply said “Help me!” and my grandfather absent-mindedly picked me up, not noticing my little fist clutching the fern. Since then, I have learned a lot more about the flora and fauna surrounding my home.

You see, I live on a discontinued dirt road, in the middle of hundreds of acres of woods, with no neighbors. My parents and I maintain the mile-long road, chop down trees to heat the house and cook our meals, and wash dishes by hand. During the summer, we feast off fresh garden produce, picked just moments earlier from our two huge gardens. There is nothing like the lush green of the vegetable plants in June. Between wood splitting, garden chores, potholes in the road, a field that always needs mowing and the dishes, there is always work to be done. At night, we listen to the coyotes howl.

My parents also decided not to have T.V., which made conversations about last night’s episode of American Idol off-limits for me. When I was 4, I was still attached to my bottle. I used it as leverage to get a Barbie. A week later I tried to trade back Barbie for my bottle. Barbie wasn’t as tasty. I was a 90s kid, but I never had a Ferbie. Following the latest fad in toys just wasn't my parent's style. Instead, I wandered barefoot in my yard and helped Mom pull potatoes from the dark, cool dirt. When I learned to read, I would lie  in a hammock for hours, my nose buried in a book.

So now at the tender age of 19, I am thrust into the florescent glare of city life, the constant hum of energy. There is never a silent moment, never complete darkness. I can’t walk from point A to point B without seeing people. Roads and parking lots are full of cars, and large highways surround and encroach on the city. I can’t even escape from the constant activity on J. Percy Priest Lake, where I practice as a coxswain on the Vanderbilt rowing team. There is always a plane on the horizon, or a speedboat bearing down on the shell.

One drink from the water fountain in my dorm, and I know I’m not in Massachusetts anymore (and Toto is nowhere to be found). Bleh! Who wants to drink chlorine? Even worse for me, I struggle to find good vegetarian food among the sea of beef and fried chicken. My mother had to chase me around with a spoon to get me to eat as a toddler, and my pickiness still hasn’t worn off. Easy-mac has become a staple.

On the bright side, everyone is friendly. The ladies that swipe my card in the dining hall always genuinely ask how my day is going. My fear was that this southern hospitality was a façade over a vague hierarchy and system of judgment. Thus far, these small interactions feel real.

This blog will be my exploration of my identity, as I move from Thoreau’s Walden Pond to mainstream, neon, flashy America. Yet as I search for understanding in these two worlds, I will learn to understand my generation. This is the generation of instant gratification, of “I liked it before it was cool” and of constant technology. And of course, it all began with Ferbie.

If this is the America we live in, what will our future look like? As somewhat of an outsider, I will immerse myself in this fast-paced world to find both where I fit into it and where my generation fits into the grand scheme of the future (if there even is such a thing).

What I’ll give you here will be my reverse-Walden, and I hope to find something more beautiful and precious than Thoreau.