Grey skies, constant drizzling rain, drooping trees, and whipping cold wind welcomed us into Covid-19 quarantine with a sky that matched our spirits. My husband Rob and I had just moved into a new house a month before the pandemic and were finally feeling settled. Life pre-March was fairly routine. I
Read MoreI’ve been hiding out from the world now for 55 days. In the beginning, there was adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I made lists of projects and hopeful homeschool schedules and age-appropriate chore lists written in marker on index cards. Like a lot of us, I heaped pressure on myself and everyone around me to do better and become something better while we had so much unbroken time. We aren’t in the beginning anymore, are we?
Read MoreTo call Jackson home sometimes feels like a betrayal of the place that taught me the meaning of that word. Two hours east on I-40, home is a small white farmhouse on top of a hill with a porch swing and a bed of roses that welcome you to the front door. At home, the sound of that swing’s rusty metal creaking still steadies me like I imagine the ticking of a metronome does for a novice musician. There are days when I ache for the rhythm of home, just as we gasp for air when deprived of breath.
Read MoreIt seems quite contradictory to write a piece on why people should stay in Jackson on the eve of our move to Nashville. After eight years of choosing to stay, the decision to leave didn’t come easily, and I certainly put up a fight. However, I had to come to terms with the fact that sometimes a dream is for a season, and it’s okay for dreams to develop towards other places. You don’t have to abandon a sense of “place” once you move.
Read MoreMegan was a fact nut, the kind of girl who was interested in the details in everything she studied. She once committed a semester to checking out a certain number of design books at the library just to keep herself inspired in her trade and always learning. So it shouldn’t have surprised me when began research on her new historic duplex on Arlington and affectionately referred to it by the name the metal sign read outside: The Merriweather House.
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