I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
June 7, 2006
>Here it is… My first column for the Nashville Scene, reprinted for you in all its glory.
My Not-So-Hip ZIP
WANTED: Suburban gal pal for stay-at-home-mom adrift in Bellevue and fearing for her sanity. Applicants must love David Sedaris, The Pixies and Charlie Kaufman movies. Persons with Lisa Rinna haircuts or tracksuits with pants that whoosh when they walk need not apply. Job requirements include but are not limited to weekly martini nights (no children, please), occasionally culminating in a prank call to the neighborhood association president. Interested parties please respond to this column.
A long time ago when I was a single working girl, I dreamed of one day buying an old house in an artsy Nashville neighborhood. I could just see myself serving up to-die-for mojitos to the neighbors as they jammed on homemade instruments atop my homey front porch. Mornings would find me at a locally owned coffeehouse, catching up on local gossip over a steaming mug of joe.
Five years later, I’m holed up in a Bellevue brick-front house, a stay-at-home mom to a toddler and two teen stepdaughters. I drive an extra-large SUV. I clip coupons. My coffee comes from the Starbucks drive-thru.
What. The hell. Happened.
Basically, I fell in love and made some sacrifices, one of which apparently involved forking over my cool card. I seriously doubt I’m the only suburban mom with the occasional yearning for a nice, drink-fueled dance fest at Mercy Lounge. But I wouldn’t call myself the most popular member of the PTA, either. I’m still trying to figure out exactly where I fit in.
I’ve learned from experience that it takes time and effort to get to know your neighbors in the ’burbs, and even more time to find friends among them who’ll join you in downing shots at O’Charley’s without reporting it to the play group mommies the next week. There’s a certain reluctance here to get too close to the people sharing your backyard fence, which is understandable since rumors in any neighborhood tend to replicate like cockroaches in a frat house. Yet despite all this, there’s one really good reason that I live here.
I feel safe.
I love how blasé my hipper acquaintances are about the not-so-nice doings in their urban communities. Shortly after my husband and I moved into our new home, we ran into an East Nashville couple we had met once or twice before. The talk quickly turned to local television.
“We’ve been really upset about the media’s portrayal of East Nashville as this place that’s full of crime,” the wife said, shaking her head.
“Yeah,” her husband agreed. “I mean, we’ve lived there for six months now and it’s a great neighborhood! We actually know all of our neighbors. We love our neighbors. And absolutely nothing bad has happened to us.”
“Well, except for the loaded gun we found in our yard,” his wife intervened.
“Yeah, there was that,” the husband said thoughtfully. “The thinking was that someone dropped it in our bushes while fleeing the scene of a crime.” He shrugged his shoulders. “We were told to just keep it, in case we needed it later.”
I’m not knocking those who are rearing kids in East Nashville. The truth is, I’m a little envious. Because now that I have a baby, my imagination is in overdrive. I’m pretty sure that every car that circles our cul-de-sac slowly is a potential kidnapper. Every firecracker erupting in the distance is gunfire. Every bit of graffiti scrawled on a subdivision street sign is a gang tag. Until I can afford Britney Spears-style bodyguards and an electrified fence, I am no longer a good candidate for the funky old house in the artsy urban neighborhood. Dammit.
Instead, I’m doomed to be a suburban housewife in denial, letting the baby listen to Radiohead, wearing a little too much eye makeup and screaming my head off at the girls’ soccer games. I may not fit the mold of what’s expected in suburbia, but I know I’m not the only one trying to nourish my inner bad girl. I hear that bank executive banging on the drum kit inside his three-car garage. I’ve watched one of our elementary school teachers drunkenly toast herself at Virago. I’ve even seen Susie Soccermom whirling to Phish late at night on her back deck.
Come to think of it, maybe suburbanites are the truly hip ones, so hip to their hipness that they have to cover it up by day with holiday-themed cardigans and Sansabelt pants, lest the urban loft dwellers get a hankering to move out here and drive up prices.
It’s a thought.
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