Squint.

Last night, Meredith and I helped Marisa put up her Christmas tree.  After a series of unfortunate events [which had there been a camera would be a blog post in itself], we finally had the tree in place, the star on top, and it was time to string the lights.

As we would finish a strand, Marisa would have us step back, squint our eyes, and look at the tree.  “It’s prettier that way,” she claimed.  So I shuffled a few feet backwards, squinted, and sure enough.  Something about it was lovely. Like, deep-in-your-core kind of lovely.

When I finally left after much chatting and some delicious cookies, I took a different route home.  I went through town instead of using the highway.  And as I pulled up to the stoplight at the intersection of 4th Avenue and Demonbreun, I was facing downtown. The big city of Nashville. All the tall buildings had scattered lights on, proof that important people were working too late or someone was cleaning up after them.  Either way, it shimmered.

Rain was dripping, not really falling.  But my windshield had little droplets that made the light from the tall buildings refract a bit. While waiting for the red light to turn green, I squinted my eyes.

The brightness of the lights mixed with the raindrops through my squinted view- it was lovely.

I don’t recall what song was on the radio.  I thought I would.  The night sky was really black and I was the only one at the intersection.  My car had warmed up, though the outside temperature read a chilly 36 degrees. I stopped squinting and just looked.

I took a deep breath and thought, “I am going to remember this moment forever.”

Because sitting in my car right there on 4th Avenue, I fell in love with Nashville.

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