Category Archives: point of view

Finding closure in destruction

Yesterday, I finally got closure on something that I didn’t even know I needed closure on… I got closure on the fact that the Fiddle & Steel Guitar Bar closed.

For those who are lost… see my post from January 2015.

Fiddle & Steel

I hadn’t set foot in the Alley since then, and I’d relied only on photos friends would post the occasional picture of the building behind a barricade. I followed articles that said the new boutique hotel  coming to Printer’s Alley were over budget, then historical questions came up and things got put on hold, then they were back on again. Following the saga of the buildings in Printer’s Alley has been an emotional roller coaster for those of us who had so much love and passion for the Alley.

I fell in love with Printer’s Alley when I moved to Nashville. Love. I mean it. I researched everything I could about it. I would dig through old phone books, trying to discover what was in each of these 100+ year old buildings. From printers to furniture shops to bars to theaters, the Alley has been through so many transformations. I considered writing a book about it. I felt this odd deep connection to the Alley, and it seemed the heart of it beat inside the Fiddle & Steel Guitar Bar.

Printer's Alley

Don’t get me wrong, the other establishments in the Alley were/are great, and all of us were a family in a way. I knew I could walk into any bar in that Alley on any given night and find people I knew and who would be happy to see me. There was this amazing vibration to it. You could sometimes, if you closed your eyes, feel ghosts of past Alley regulars walking with you.

I/we respected and honored the history of it.

When developers came in and kicked out the Fiddle & Steel, Lonnie’s and the Brass Stables, it hurt… it, as weird as it sounds, was like a bad break-up. Like a sudden divorce that you didn’t see coming.

365: The end

Hundreds of hearts absolutely broke into a million pieces when that neon turned off, and those doors locked one last time. We, as shepherds of the building, walked away in person… but our hearts to some degree stayed. We were now the ghosts of the Alley.

Last week, they tore our building down. When I saw video of it coming down on the news, I found myself crying silently on my couch. As I spoke of it with others, I pushed down sobs. Clearly the wounds of our closing had not healed after all.

Oh, I’d justified it a million ways in my head. It was a blessing in disguise in a way. We probably wouldn’t have been there much longer anyway, because the buildings truly did need many extensive repairs. Surely they have to keep the historical integrity of the buildings, and at least the history will still be right there for all to see for years to come.

Printer's Alley - July 2014

But the fact remained the building was sitting there empty. And justify it all I tried, I also asked, “WHY?? Why did they kick us out when they did? Why didn’t they give us a chance to stay?”

I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back and stare at that building that I had laughed in. I had cried in. I grew in. I had found some of the best friends of my life in. And to know I could never go back inside it. It hurt deep down inside.

Yesterday, I had lunch with friends, and then for the first time in a year and a half I felt pulled to the Alley. I drove downtown, and as I walked up the hill to that arched sign I once photographed almost every other week, I felt like a stranger in a place I once spent more time than I spent at home. Memories smacked me in the face, one after another. And as I turned the corner to stare down the Alley, it took my breath away. It was gone. It was just… gone.

Tearing it down to build something new

Printer’s Alley, that I had photographed so many times in the past and that I scoured books and the internet for photos of from the past, was forever changed. A huge gaping hole seemed fitting for the hole that had long been left in my heart. I took a deep breath and one foot in front of the other I walked the path I’d walked literally thousands of times over the course of 7 years. Oddly, though, I no longer felt that hum of the ghosts of the past. It was as if they’d all run far away.

Soon I was staring at a pile of wood where once three buildings had stood… three buildings that had held so much history. Three buildings that had held in it over 100 years of memories.

Tearing it down to build something new

The finality didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. For the first time I felt some closure.

There was no going back for any of us. Whatever comes up in that place will never hold the character, charm, and heart of the Fiddle & Steel or Lonnie’s Western Room.  They’ll never hold the history (much of it quite sordid!) as they’ll come up anew with a clean slate. Oh, sure, they’ll use the bricks from the building, and they’ll try to make it look historical. But it won’t be.

Printer’s Alley that was once so full of history will now hold a center of new, shiny and fancy.

Tearing it down to build something new

No, Printer’s Alley isn’t closed. Kelli’s, Fleet Street, Bourbon Street and the Rainbow Room still beckon visitors down it. There is still laughter and memories and music being made in those walls. There’s a piece of that past still living on in them, and I can’t deny or ignore that fact.

Someday a new hotel will welcome tourists. Perhaps they’ll put a new restaurant or bar on the bottom floor. But that’s just it, it will be new. The face of Printer’s Alley will have changed much like that of someone who has gone through plastic surgery.

As I stood there, two familiar faces (employees of other businesses) appeared. One didn’t see me, the other I exchanged pleasantries with… and in that moment I realized that us ghosts of Printer’s Alley have stuck together and we always will. We’ll still be haunting the Alley, even if only in our hearts, memories and friendships.

IMG_1775-withme

The Fiddle Family is just as strong as ever, even if we don’t get to see each other as much. I could probably still look up some of the employees of the other bars and be greeted with a smile and a hug. They can take our building, but they can’t take US away.

As I walked away, I realized I still love Printer’s Alley’s history, and I always will. Life may someday take me back down it one day, but as of right now I have a sense of closure. That chapter of my life has closed. And I may not be 100% okay with that. I may never be. But I am a heck of a lot closer to it than I was.

For more photos from my visit to the Alley this week, click here.

Perspective

October has passed really fast. Faster than I think I’ve experienced it passing in years. In a blink of an eye, I feel like we’ve gone from warm weather and lake-days to brilliant leaves and cold rain. Halloween approaches, and the question, “What are you doing for the holidays?” is a common conversation starter.

Fall photosLast week, though, was one that brought around a lot of perspective in many ways. It all really started with handling an issue in a closed group I help admin on Facebook. For the first time, outside of approving memberships, I had to put on my admin hat and kick out a member… and deal with the aftermath of the drama that occurred. I don’t like drama, and I often say that I don’t handle it well. However, through the course of the issue, I learned that I CAN handle drama, and that sometimes the only answer you can give is a strong and final, “NO.”

Not long after, I got word of an extended family member’s death. It wasn’t a family member I was close to at all — in fact according to my Mom I probably had not seen this person since I was in high school — but I still felt this distinct pang of sorrow over the loss. Gone too young, I ached to hug his family members, and I wished I could take their pain away. Life is short… make the most of every day you have. Hold on to your loved ones, and tell them you care as often as you can. You never know when it might be your last chance.

Saturday brought about the Oklahoma State University homecoming, and the horrible accident that occurred at their homecoming parade. Suddenly the fact that football does not trump life was brought to light. Win or lose, there were people who would never get to hug their loved ones again. There were others who lay in a hospital in critical condition. All these lives changed in the blink of an eye… the outcome of the football game they were excited about no longer mattered.   

That all being said, football does matter a lot of many people. Saturday night was a difficult for Aggies, as we watched our team implode on itself.  Even as we took a moment to reflect on the tragedy at OSU, it was hard to not feel that sting of loss.

The next day, when I got dressed to go out, I didn’t hesitate to grab one of my Texas A&M hoodies. I remembered a tweet I shared a few years prior (thanks to Timehop I had just recently read it again), in which after the Aggies had lost, someone asked a fellow Aggie if they were embarrassed to wear an A&M shirt on Monday. “Never, sir,” they had replied.

2015-10-25 16.31.46

We get hung up on football records, and so many deem a university “good” or “bad” based on their football season. But I didn’t go to Texas A&M for football. I went for everything else. A good education, the Aggie family, and core sense of values that the school instilled into me. It’s those lessons and the Aggie community that I lean on heavily in my daily life… its why I am passionate about being and honored to be an Aggie. And that doesn’t change whether my team has a losing season or are ranked top of the charts.

So, you know, life is all about perspective. I can look at October coming to an end as a bummer that the year is going by too fast, or I can embrace it as time marching forward towards the next big thing in life… whatever that may or may not be.