These Boots Were Made for Reevaluating My Relationship to My Hometown
I swore to myself I’d never buy a pair of cowboy boots. But here I am, on my laptop, cursor hovering over the “complete purchase” button on a pair of all-white Jeffrey Campbells. Click. They’ll arrive at my doorstep in a week, much to the chagrin of my younger self.
Growing up in the backwoods of Middle Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, cowboy boots were as ubiquitous as camo hunting jackets, pickup trucks, and a distaste for anything outside of the conventional and familiar. Cowboy boots were a staple in the uniform of any bona fide Southerner, and as such they became a symbol of everything my cynical teenaged self-hatred about where I grew up.
While my father’s family had lived in my parochial Southern hometown for generations, and in the hollers of Southern Appalachia before that, my mother was originally from New England, with the sensibilities to match. But in each of their families, my parents had been the first in their families to go to college — the ones who “got out.” They instilled liberal values in me, and while my classmates and their families watched Fox News and voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney, I came to school the day after both elections clandestinely elated about the results.
Knowing that contradicting “How Things Are Done Around These Parts” was tantamount to blasphemy and an offense worthy of ostracization, I made a pact with myself to conform outwardly and let resentment towards anything tangentially Southern fester inwardly. Each summer, when locals and tourists descended upon Nashville for the CMA Fest –– a weekend of country music that I always resented for falling on my birthday each year –– I would sit back and watch the Instagram posts full of tailgating, pickup trucks, beer, and all manner of Southern attire donned by festivalgoers (including cowboy boots) overrun my feed. I was snide and superior, aghast at how anyone could prefer Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert over Arctic Monkeys and Neutral Milk Hotel.
I had to get out. In eighth grade, I had my mother take me to a Barnes & Noble in the next town over to purchase The Princeton Review’s The Best 376 Colleges. While my churchgoing classmates had the Bible, I’d pore over this directory of possible escape routes for hours, highlighter in hand, often neglecting my actual schoolwork. I read it cover to cover, furiously bookmarking which colleges were the most progressive, had the most offbeat classes, did not have Greek life, and most importantly, were located thousands of miles away from Gallatin, Tennessee.
I gleefully accepted a spot at Tufts University, a school not a single person at my high school –– save my tenth-grade English teacher –– had heard of, much less bothered to apply to. When I arrived in Somerville, Massachusetts for my first year, I told people I was from Nashville, and immediately and compulsively explained that Nashville was a liberal oasis in a sea of red-state conservatism and bigotry. I was desperate to rid myself of any association with my place of origin and the implications that I felt were inextricable from calling such a place home. But as I gained both physical and emotional space from my childhood, my dogmatic and unforgiving attitude towards the South softened. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in this case, more receptive to nuance.
Before my eyes, I watched Nashville become a place of interest for my college classmates booking spring break trips: it was a cooler, fresher alternative to New Orleans and Austin. (Everyone knows only tourists visit the honky-tonks on Broadway.) Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton suddenly graced the front of overpriced graphic tee shirts at Urban Outfitters, joining the ranks of The Rolling Stones and Guns N’ Roses. (Oh, you’re a Johnny Cash fan? Name three of his albums! Man in Black, Ragged Old Flag, and At Folsom Prison all come to mind.) Genre-blurring artists that toed the line between country and pop, like Kacey Musgraves, dominated the charts. (My grandma, like Kacey’s, cried when I pierced my nose too.) And when I moved to New York after graduation, I only had to walk a few blocks in Lower Manhattan before I ran out of fingers to count the pairs of cowboy boots I saw donning the feet of fashion-conscious twenty-somethings.
Those boots that I had so loathed had become just as ubiquitous in the fashion capital of the world as they had been in my hodunk hometown. As the ilk of the South became the latest trend, feelings of pride and appreciation for my Southern identity replaced feelings of shame and defensiveness. I devoured a ten-part Dolly Parton podcast and accumulated a collection of Johnny Cash vinyl records. I bought a phone case inscribed with the phrase “Yeehaw” and got a nonsensical stick-and-poke tattoo of a cowboy hat accompanied by the words “Baby Biscuit.” And I became deeply invested in understanding the grassroots working-class activism (often led by people of color) that manages to thrive in the South, even in the face of Republican-dominated state governments.
Since that first year away from the South, my relationship to my hometown has grown less spiteful and more subtle. I no longer fib and say I’m from Nashville instead of Gallatin, and that compulsive qualification has dropped off entirely. I have learned how to love aspects of the South that align with my values, while still leaving space for thoughtful criticism. I have learned how to give myself the grace to hold multiple truths simultaneously and give that same grace to others, and to not only tolerate but appreciate and seek out contradictions. I have even learned to love cowboy boots.
