Walking in Memphis

Memphis is the kind of city that you can fall hard for, and even though it will take a lot of gritty work, you can see a long relationship if you both do your part. Memphis is not like a Charleston or a Malibu or a Newport, the kind of cities that make you swoon, the kind that give you butterflies and the notion that life will always be this easy and beautiful and well-lit. Even though you know it won't, because at some point the vacation ends and real life in that town begins.

Memphis is more like a Detroit or a Cleveland or a Savannah--cities endowed with natural beauty, but which are a little more weathered because of what they've seen. A little less polished because of how they've been treated. But still you know that with a lot of care and investment, this could shape up to be a beautiful love story....

*** I fell hard for Memphis  and I don't care what anyone says. The neighborhoods of Evergreen, Overton Park, Cooper-Young, Midtown rose up to meet me and the sun shone warmly on my back. We scored a great little AirBnB cottage that was perfect for our family of 4. Seriously, fabulous. Message me if you want to know which.

Beale Street enchanted me mid-day.  Graceland ravished me with secrets about the King. Butler Park romanced me, the ducks at the Peabody Hotel enamored me, the National Civil Rights Museum enthralled me, and Muddy's Bakery melted me in every way. The Neighborhood Church still has my kids singing all the songs (shout-out to Meredith--you are SUCH a blessing). The Memphis Zoo is fantastic (really well-manicured and a good number of exhibits--could have done without the bats, reptiles exhibit. Still can't get the smell out of that place from making me viscerally gag. Ack.). I'd like to explore the Main St. area more and I'd definitely like to go back and check out the CMOM and do a tour of St. Jude's.

Overton Park

Looking out at the Mississippi

Exploring Downtown, Main St. 

National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel

Muddy's Grind House - recommend everything. The cupcakes were reeedonk.

The beautiful Peabody Hotel and their beloved fine-feathered guests

Memphis has soul, it's been said, and now I understand why. Memphians greet you with wide smiles, open hearts, and quick laughs. Marc Cohn, I get you now, bro. I totally do feel the way you feel.

The FamiLee visits the Lorraine Motel

We took the kids to Memphis this week. I'd like to pat ourselves on the back for doing a bang-up job of priming them for why Memphis is such a significant place in shaping this country's history. In particular, we took the kids to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel. As historical showcases go, the museum is just phenomenal. Interactive media, gorgeous photos, and very memorable displays that take one through the history from slavery to the civil rights movement, even ending with a segment on human trafficking.

The tricky thing is that we waited until the 3p entry because Tennesseans need only present their state-issued license to get in free on Mondays! The kids were a little over-hyped by that point. We didn't want to be those parents harping the whole time; we have realistic expectations of how a 6 year-old and a 4 year-old behave in a museum about topics that are way over their heads. Example: they got on the bus with a replica of Rosa Parks and the bus driver chastising her and they were spooked. Dude. Why isn't she moving? Oh. It's a statue. And also, it's Rosa Parks. Complexity.

The part of the museum that takes visitors through a reconstructed room #306 is just very special. You peer into the last place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rested his head before he walked out with his brother and friends and was shot on the balcony by James Earl Ray. You see the books that were tucked into King's suitcase. The passage is cloaked in blue and the music playing is beautiful, funereal and the whole mood is reverent.

As we approached the window to peer in on room #306, my little man said loudly, "Shhh. We're about to meet Elvis."

Memphis, y'all.

The sugar maple trees that are changing (us)

There are some sugar maples not far from my kids' school that are changing. They're changing form and color and they are changing the little community in which we live.

I see our friends post on instagram how grateful they are to have these giving trees in which their kids can play in the leafpiles. They share snapshots of the trees, their tops starting to shed, suddenly looking immodest as if Autumn were the worst kind of closet-raider.

The sugar maple tree in itself has a lovely shape. Strong but elegant, the kind you want to capture in a silhouette and put on a wedding invitation.

I have a colleague who knows plantlife and he was the one told me the trees were the sugar maples. I am not very good with botany or ID-ing arbors. I am not typically observant of details--I am more intuitive, feeling the changing of seasons in my bones first and then with my eyes.  But it seems that everyone has been noticing these gorgeous sugar maples in front of the school. Men, women, children, the trees are the talk of the town.

I took my lunch break to capture these images. I've worked at places where taking a lunch anywhere other than in your cubicle was practically an act of civil disobedience. And if stomping around on school grounds to admire some sugar maples is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

I'm not about to go all The Lorax on you or make reference to #leafporn. I just want to share how this feels. I cannot remember the last time a community (e.g. a neighborhood, a school, a workplace, a family) was abuzz about something marvelous. Usually the trending topic, the Facebook feed is rife with scandal, controversy, shocking statistics. It's rare for our eyes to be collectively pointed to beauty.

I just want to be swept up in the autumnal adoration, especially because I can't remember the last time we were all rallying around the glory of leaves.

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I can't remember the last time the word on the street was, "Wow.

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