It’s important to note that when I woke on the 8th September, I did not think that I would end the day bearing a tattoo. Perhaps it was my impulsiveness, perhaps it was Nashville, but whatever it was, I now have ‘Feast’ inked onto my forearm and I’m not entirely sure who I am anymore.
Still, the day begins in puritanical innocence, with a salad (breakfast seems to become lunch far too often on this trip). Broadway is muffled by midday humidity, but still the bands play on – out of every doorway, bluegrass tumbles. I spend two hours trying to come to terms with the meaning of Music City in The Country Music Hall of Fame. By the time we leave, Nashville feels like an alive and impressionable caricature of itself and everything seems like a good idea. Like a possessed woman, I head confidently towards the tattoo parlour. So later that evening, whilst we tap our feet to Chicken Fried in a honky-tonk, there is a tattoo on my arm. A permanent reminder of what it means to be twenty-one, consuming life’s symbolic, literal and convivial feast.
I’m praying that by the time I’m thirty I’m not a regretful pessimist. Then this will all look a bit silly.
To The Table 