Good Morning From Nashville

It’s 6:20 am here in Tennessee, and 7:20 am back in Michigan. I was supposed to meet up with people from work and get picked up from the hotel at 7:30 am Central time. When I woke up I saw the clock in the hotel room showing 6:40 am. Though strangely my cell phone alarm hadn’t gone off, I got up, got ready, and came down to the lobby.

Nobody’s here.

Strange. Anally punctual Japanese businessman that they are, I was sure the work people would all be here by 10 minutes before we are supposed to take off. Then I looked at the clock in the lobby. 6:10 am!? Was the clock in my room an hour early for whatever reason, or did I just hallucinate? No wonder my cell phone alarm hasn’t gone off. I already turned in my key to the front desk, and it doesn’t matter what exactly happened at that point. Oh well.

Could it be that God wanted to spend time with me so badly, He had to trick me into getting up early? Hmmm. Well, in that case, I shall utilize this time by praying, the Devine Houring, journaling and what have you.

I like the word Tennessee. It has two Ns, Ss, and Es. I also like the word Mississippi and Chattanooga for the similar reason. The South is full of cool names.

This is my first time traveling to Tennessee. Though I usually don’t get to go around much on a business trip, I was able see a good deal of country side as we drove out from Nashville to Decherd where Nissan plant is located. Not surprisingly, the Spring season is in a later stage in Tennessee. The medial strip of the highway was absolutely full of wild flowers. It looked amazing with bright red poppies, Queen Ann’s laces (which I love), cheerful yellow flowers I don’t know the name of, and pale pink flowers I’ve never seen before. Most of the plants here didn’t look drastically different from the ones in Michigan, but the trees seemed larger and the scenery was generally lusher.

There were a lot of rock shelves on either side of the highway. I’m guessing the foundation here is much more rock based than the clay based unlike Michigan, where most of the land used to be covered by the lake. Another thing I noticed was the color of the plowed soil in the farming fields. It was much more redder than what I see in the Midwest, in almost like a terracotta color. Maybe it contains more iron or something? I loved the contrast between the warm brown and the fresh green of the grass.

The sky was so very high and big over the vast expansion of farm and cattle land, framed by the mountains blue in a distance. The emotional response mountains stir up in me always comes as a surprise. I remember when I saw the mountains for the first times in months after I first arrived to Michigan. I was driving through the hilly portion of Pennsylvania, and didn’t know why the sight of mountainous landscape made me want to cry all of a sudden. Rolling hills of Tennessee had a similar affect on me. As much as I enjoy living in Michigan, I’m out of my element, the sea and the mountains, more than I am conscious of.

Ironically though, when I am in my home town I don’t feel so comfortable anymore. The place my heart is yearning for may exist only in my memory now.