How It Started

I had always been told that traveling abroad was going to change me and on some level, I knew that people were right. But of course, I couldn't have known HOW those changes would take place, or exactly what they would be. All I knew was that I had always felt drawn to Europe. Sometimes it even seemed as though I belonged over there, not here.

I've only lived two places in my life, now spanning 34 years - the first 25 in Huntsville, Alabama (the place of my birth) and the most recent nine in Nashville. While I have always harbored a sense of fascination for other cultures, the only one I have truly known is that of the Southeastern United States.

This past year I finally did make it off our North American continent and across the Atlantic to Europe, not once but twice. I experienced Paris, Saint Paul-Trois-Château (in northern Provence), Berlin, and Prague. Each place presented its own challenges and flavors, but there was one thing that was common to them all, and that was the thing that would ultimately change me the most.

I never knew it would be possible to live without a car. We have places here in the US, like for instance New York, where people live car-free, but those places seem so far from where I am, somehow. Staying in Europe for a few weeks gave me a glimpse of what life could be like, if I and everyone around me wasn't so dependent on an automobile. And now that I've had a vision of that life, I can't let it go.

First of all, life with good public transportation is SAFER. We Americans claim to live in "the land of the free," and yet, we are afraid to walk around at night. For good reason, too. We are so very isolated in our cars, driving around one or two per persons per vehicle, we are like sitting ducks walking to our cars with no one else around. People get knocked over the head, robbed and held at gunpoint, all the time. My American friends in Europe all told me that there was a moment when they came to realize that, over there, they can walk around at night and it's perfectly fine! They are connected to their surroundings and to other people in a way we just don't know over here, and it is simply SAFER. Talk about freedom.

Secondly, life without a car is less expensive. Getting around on good public transportation costs about the same as, if not less than, what we are used to paying for gas. Only there is no front-end investment of thousands of dollars for a car (which most of us go into debt for in the first place) and there is no expensive maintenance of that car. Not to mention the time and stress it saves us, when commuting, to not have to deal with driving through congested roads filled with angry, inconsiderate drivers.

I have been driving the same car for nearly 10 years, and lately it has begun to wear out. Since I returned from my second trip abroad in April, I have been faced with the fact that if I am going to continue living where I live, I most likely will have to buy another automobile. And I am vehemently against this. I have tried riding the buses and found them cumbersome, inconvenient. I've recently bought an electric bicycle and am going to try and make bus-riding work better that way, using the old car occasionally but only when necessary. But I am afraid that ultimately I am going to have to choose - either go back into debt for a car I do not want, or move away to somewhere I can live without one.

I love Nashville. I do not want to leave. And so, I am going to do my best to see that I never have to make this choice. However, I am only one person and I only have one voice. I see a need for change and I am willing to do my part. I just hope that there are enough people out there who feel the same way, that we can actually make a difference.

And so begins this blog.