These Days They Are a River, And We're All Floating Down, Every Loved One, Every Neighbor, and Tennesee and My Hometown

i grew up in nashville tennessee in a family of musicians and school teachers. we had a record player in the den that provided me with hours of dancing around the house while my parents worked. my mom graded math papers with red pen in the renovated attic. we were always saving turtles and tadpoles and ducks and mice from highways and the creek. after making trips to science classes and show-and-tells we would take them to the woods and let them crawl or swim or scamper away. my dad would walk around the house with his guitar and harmonica strap singing mostly bob dylan. he taught me how to play chess good enough to beat the boys in my fifth grade class and that you should play guitar with your fingers instead of a pick when you're first learning so they can get the practice. and then, there were other things i learned seperate from my parents, which, all theological practicalities aside, makes me think i was pieced together with more than a genetic mixture of the two. i made the attic into a place where i could paint and discovered the one spot next the the fence where, if you dig deep enough, you can find red dirt and china. at the fabric store i would run down the aisles with my hands stretched out and hid inside the circular stands. i loved the way everything felt and felt different. these are really good memories, ones i remember after listening to my dad's voice singing subterranian homesick blues on the answering machine and moving earthworms from piles into the dirt and watching walk the line and hurt, the johnny cash music video