All around us.

If you don’t know where you are currently standing, you’re dead. ” – Samuel Beckett

Homer Worsham Road, my place, sits in the midst of Robertson County in the middle of Tennessee. It’s a county road and our home is in an “unincorporated” area of the county. That means we are really country folk out here. The funny thing is that Robertson County is home to eleven (yep, I said eleven) cities, so it’s kind of remarkable how we aren’t within the limits of any of them!

Our mailing address is Springfield but we’re a little schizo because we have White House water, Springfield gas, electricity from the rural co-op, and when we had a land line, a Cross Plains phone number. We “identify” as Cross Plains peeps…mostly because that is the home of the high school our sons attended. “We are…ER! Go Indians!”

Robertson County is sort of the last frontier of the middle Tennessee region. Explosive growth has been happening as Nashville has become such an attractive destination for both tourists and residents, but the bulk of that growth happened south and east of Nashville. This rural farmland dotted with small towns is starting to grab the attention of those seeking lower housing and land prices and less congestion. And that’s a good thing for me since my actual job as the economic development officer for the county is to bring investment and jobs and growth to our communities.

But there is a really rich rural and agricultural heritage here and a strong sense of place that, collectively, we don’t want to lose. Growth is a good thing as long as it is managed and we are mindful not to lose the things that we love about our home. That is, the very reasons we decided to make this our home in the first place. I’m cautiously optimistic about our ability to do that. Robertson County is not for everyone and, so far, the people who are moving here seem to value those things that make it what it is.

I’m richly blessed to be able to live AND work in this place. To have a 15 minute, beautiful, traffic-less drive down my chip and seal road and the state highway to the Court House Square in Springfield and then to be able to come back to Homer Worsham Road each evening and soak in the sights and smells and quiet and dark nights is extraordinary.

All around us is the wonder and excitement and busy-ness of Nashville…but here on Homer Worsham Road there’s a raccoon coming on my back porch looking for leftover cat food.