photograph by anna traverse
Editor’s Note: A city is to be shared. Roughly a million people live in what we might call “Greater Memphis,” a hub that stretches east to Germantown and Collierville, and even across state borders (and a mighty river) if we include West Memphis and Southaven. But here’s the charm of a city as distinctive as Memphis, Tennessee: It’s a different home for every one of us. There are residents of Midtown who feel like they need to pack a suitcase if they travel east of Highland. Likewise, some East Memphians schedule trips Downtown like a special event. What makes Memphis home for you? If you had to identify one place or thing that makes the Bluff City singular, what would it be?
We asked eight writers to define “My Memphis” in a single essay. While it’s impossible to answer such a challenge on a single page, it’s a start. And we hope it reminds you of a place (or thing) that makes this amazing city your home too. Feel free to share your version of “My Memphis” with us.
A few months back, I visited a magazine-writing class at Rhodes College where I was to share my dubious wisdom as the editor of this publication; to my simultaneous delight and mortification, the students had read much of what I’ve published in Memphis Magazine and came prepared with questions. One woman raised her hand and asked, “I noticed that in your column, you often write about nature, especially Overton Park — is there a reason behind that?” It ought to have been the easiest question that day, but I found myself pausing for a beat too long, wondering: Do I mention the Old Forest too much? Am I a broken record? Do readers think I live in a tree? (Note to self: Research how to live in a tree.)
Eventually, I remember mumbling something like, “Well, I spend a lot of time there, and I guess I find the forest kind of … emotionally centering, so it just … ends up in my column a lot?”
For the better part of the past 40 years(!), I’ve spent time among these trees, and it still feels like a magic trick to me: that I can drive two miles from home, walk into the Old Forest, and feel utterly removed from time, from work, from worry, and grow briefly, deliciously lost in the woods.
What I should have said is more along the lines of this: The Old Forest is an oasis, a respite, a refuge, a gift, and it’s a huge part of what makes Memphis feel like home to me. It’s where I learned to run on trails, and to ride a bike, and even, briefly, to swing a golf club.
Classic story: In the mid-’90s, biking on the paved trails through the forest, my eagle-eyed father spotted a wad of cash on the ground, a man booking it into the woods, and a police car in hot pursuit. He rightly suspected a small-scale drug bust, swooped down to grab the green, and hollered at me to keep biking. He spent the few hundred dollars on two sets of golf clubs — to use on Overton’s nine-hole course. (I was atrocious.)
Disappearing into the trees, I find myself waking up to the seasons in all their detail in a way that’s nearly impossible on the paved streets of Memphis. In the early spring, ephemeral flowers come into bloom in delicate, lacy waves — phlox, toothwort, mayapple — then vanish into summer’s lush green. Come autumn, the forest glows like stained glass, or ancient amber lit from within. On a snow day, the trails sparkle, diamond-strewn, and an impossible hush falls.
Most cities have parks. But most cities don’t have lovingly preserved old-growth forests nestled amid densely urban areas. For the better part of the past 40 years(!), I’ve spent time among these trees, and it still feels like a magic trick to me: that I can drive two miles from home, walk into the Old Forest, and feel utterly removed from time, from work, from worry, and grow briefly, deliciously lost in the woods.
Which is why I write about the place so much. — Anna Traverse
