back to tennessee

For the first time since my family moved from there to Arizona in 1987, I'm returning to Tennessee this weekend! My first business trip ever is taking me to Nashville this weekend, where I'll be attending the National Religious Broadcasters Convention at the Opryland Hotel.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited to be going on this trip, and I honestly can't decide! I'm not really sure why my boss thinks this will be a good way to "expand my horizons" professionally, but that's because I really have no clue exactly what I'll be doing at this convention! So perhaps his reasoning will become clear once I get there.

The only thing I can look forward to for now is the fact that, for the first time in 22 years, I'll be returning to the "wrong side of the river," as we Californians have always referred to anything east of the Mississippi. I know it's not the correct thing to be looking forward to about a business trip, but I'm really hoping for a few free hours over the next four days to do some exploring and make some jaunts down Memory Lane!

We used to live in a gorgeous house on 2012 Sunnyslope Lane in a little Nashville bedroom community called Goodlettsville. I hope to walk up to that front porch again, knock on the door, introduce myself to whoever lives there now and say, "Pardon me, but I used to live in your house 25 years ago, and would like to know if I may take a picture of the outside?" Perhaps they'll be so tickled by the idea that they'll invite me in for sweet tea and let me see the inside. And then I can tell them all about how we practiced our sledding on the basement stairs, or how we found a dozen old, moldy cheese balls in the nooks and crannies of the kitchen as we were moving out, or about the night my great-grandma died right there in that living room while watching "Dallas"...

Hmm... on second thought, maybe not...

There are other places I hope to see while I'm there, like the old church where we used to ditch Sunday School classes to go climbing in the old belfry, or the park where we played softball and decorated an old historic mansion with themed Christmas trees (where my own Christmas decorating madness first began!), or the school where my crazy fifth-grade teacher decorated our classroom with Barry Manilow posters... wrong side of the river indeed!

One of the places I used to visit all the time, though, I know I'm going to see -- and that's the Opryland Hotel itself! We used to visit there every Christmas to see their amazing conservatory transformed by hundreds of poinsettias and twinkle lights, and several other times during the year to play at the theme park or tour the conservatory and gardens. And now, I'm going to get to actually stay in the hotel!

So whether or not I see the old house, the old church, the old park, or the old school, I will have at least one chance this weekend to reconnect with a part of my childhood, and that's something I am definitely looking forward to!