Words

I dropped my children off at their first day of school this morning. I am now the proud mama of a fourth grader, second grader, and kindergartner. For what I guarantee will be the only time this school year, it was a fairly effortless morning. The lunches were packed the night before, backpacks were parked by the door, filled to the brim with the required school supplies (please don’t get me started on that!) ... I thought we were ready to go, and yet, not all of us were.

It is my opinion that not all lessons worth learning are found in textbooks. They are found in life and in hands-on experiences, and they are taught by people who have been there and done that and are willing to share an ounce of wisdom with ears that care to listen. For example, when I had my first son, he came with me to work until he was 6 months old. He would nap in his little baby swing, and he’d snooze in my arms as I pecked away at the keyboard, typing with one hand. The accountant, Jill, would pass by my desk on the way to her office.

Every month, like clockwork, I hear from a new reader (or a few) who is surprised to have found Her Nashville. And, like clockwork, the conversation always goes the same way. “How long has it been out?” “Did you start it?” “Where did you get the ideas?” “Are there other Hers in other cities?” The short answers are: “We launched in July 2008.” “Yes.” “Lots of research.” and “No.” The unabridged story goes something like this:

It was the last Monday morning of my kids’ schoolyear. My husband had already left for work — he goes in around 6:45 a.m. — and though I intended to get up when he left, it didn’t happen. Instead, I opened my eyes, looked at the clock, and it was 7:27 a.m.; we have to be on the road by 8 a.m. to get to school on time.

I was never particularly interested in being a mom. I wasn’t anti-motherhood, but I certainly wasn’t the child who had cradles full of perfectly diapered dollies and dreams of being a mommy. I was more of do-what-I-want-to-do person. I loved staying up late and sleeping in. I loved taking spontaneous trips — day, weekend, or otherwise. I loved laying on the couch on a rainy Saturday afternoon just because I could.

Unrefined and never artificial. That’s this month’s cover title, and it seemed like a fun way to describe the issue, which is all about environmental awareness and greener living. But the more I thought about it, those words also fit every issue of Her Nashville. The stories are always pretty raw, very real, never artificial, which leads me to my own real confession ...

On March 28, 2009, at exactly 11:14 p.m., I was asleep in bed when I heard my husband Scott’s cell phone ring on the night table next to him. A heavy sleeper, he didn’t budge, but I thought the late-night phone call was strange, so I climbed over him and took a peek at the caller ID. It was his brother Ryan. Odd, I thought. The two don’t talk too terribly often, but when they do, it’s usually at a decent hour.

“Oh, WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!” my friend Leila said as we were getting off the phone the other day.

“What?” I replied, stopping short of hanging up on her.

“I forgot to tell you!” she said excitedly. “Annie got married!”

Her sister Annie, a writer living in New York, met a guy a few months ago and had reportedly traveled to Dubai to visit a friend and then met up with aforementioned “guy” in India, where they tied the knot.

It was March of 1982. The moving vans arrived at our new house on Knox Valley Drive to deliver the contents of our family of five’s new home. Once the bikes were located and off-loaded, my sibs and I jumped on and began riding around in the garage, which led to the cement-floored basement. While my parents delegated which boxes went where, my brother, sister, and I followed each other around, riding in and out of the dark, damp nooks and crannies of our new home’s bottom-most space.

A few years ago I read a newspaper article about how “girl groups” were becoming more popular. Not to be confused with boy bands, the girl groups the article mentioned were literally that: groups of girls who got together to hang out, catch up, bond. The writer of the article interviewed several different women from a variety of groups. One group gets together once a month for dinner, taking turns with who picks the restaurant. Another group formed a book club, and they rotate whose house they meet at and who selects the next title.