Moving to Nashville after 20 years in New York, I’m attracted to all I couldn’t see, hear or have living in the north.

These are a few of my favorite Nashville things: places and diasporas that have created their own iconography with crude tools and painted signs; the General Jackson Riverboat that sits in the Cumberland River behind a shopping mall; neighborhoods within neighborhoods; small square houses and Spanish-style homes that sit next to stately houses and bungalows; freight trains that are towed over bridges and streets, honking as they move through the city.

Communities here thrive on cooperation. There’s a DIY approach to preservation that’s causing a new wave of art, music and culture. Honky tonks exist and “honky tonkin'” is a thing people do here. Civil War relics are still being discovered under buildings and in bulldozed lots. All the carved wooden bullets, epaulet keys, railroad locks, heel plates, and more being found keep Nashville a well-oiled American history machine.

Time with my husband Noah, preferably eating ice cream on our porch rocking chairs.

The slow pace.

The slow pace.

It is lush and green everywhere. As soon as you discover nature in the south it appears everywhere in the forms of lakes, rivers, fireflies, and owls.

A cross between Gladys Kravitz, George Jones, Annie Potts, and a tomato.

Yash Chopra, Olimpia Zagnoli, Jeff the Brotherhood