Asking a Charleston native to trade the Lowcountry’s winding creeks and the yawning expanse of the Atlantic Ocean for Middle Tennessee’s landlocked hills is a risky play. (Not to mention the move would require leaving an editor position for the feast-or-famine life of a freelance writer.) But seven months after my then boyfriend, Tanner, broached the relocation subject, we were settled in a prewar bungalow on a shady gravel lane in West Nashville, and I’d set up an office in the attic bedroom. I’d say he was pretty confident in my affections. He’d tell you he was less assured—and that’s why he bought the boat. Mostly.
