I awoke, as I had expected, in somewhat of a confused daze this morning… as I opened my eyes to a convex wall on one side and a closed curtain on the other, it took a few seconds to understand that this adventure had finally become actualized. A feeling of excitement simultaneously swept over and seeped into me, and as I lay attempting to embrace a feeling that I am sure to have for the next thirty-nine mornings, I suddenly felt familiarity replace the strange excitement I had awoken feeling. Then it hit me… the beginning of my adventure across an unexplored nation began with my hometown of twenty years…
The contradicting nature of this first stop is simultaneously interesting and frustrating. Having lived in Memphis, TN my entire life until coming to college, the idea of exploring a city whose traditions and structures already felt so intrinsic to me failed to initially satisfy my wanderlust. Nonetheless, the day was ours and mine and I knew that there were experiences to be had.
We started discovering Memphis at the famous and original Peabody Hotel, known for its marching ducks. For those of you unaware of this historical tourist attraction, the Peabody hotel marches five ducks along a red carpet to a somewhat ornate fountain each day at 11:00 a.m. Though I had experienced this strange and short-lived viewing multiple times, I eagerly walked with my other eleven colleagues into the hotel, up the stairs, and positioned myself up against the banister. And then we waited… As I glanced across the gathering of over the hundreds of tourists in the lobby – the conservatively dressed businessmen, the older couple whose hawaiin print t-shirts perfectly exemplified their ‘touristic’ intentions, and the young girl playing with the stuffed animal- they seemed eagerly patient, waiting for the chance to experience what their families or friends must have boasted about seeing in years past. As the ‘duckmaster’ stepped into the scene, the crowd silenced itself, awaiting instruction from the man with the walking staff. He began to recount a history of the duck march, using a bellowing tone of voice and pausing for dramatic effect so perfectly that I felt slightly nauseous. Finally the doors opened and five waddling ducks sprinted to the fountain in about five seconds flat. The audience began to applaud the event as the ducks jumped into the fountain, and immediately the expression on each student’s face around me changed from eager to disappointed. While the duck march embodied specific aspects of tourism that fully supported the archetypal tourist, a part of me felt satisfaction in simply Recognizing the construction of this tourist attraction that promoted itself through historic tradition yet displayed itself in a three-ring circus fashion.
After the Peabody we wandered over to Beale Street to define the Memphis that Memphis sells itself as. The group scattered itself among gift shops, voodoo stores, and conversations in the street. It was difficult for me to see the kitsch and conformity in the streets of my own town as I stepped across the pavement that my feet had already grown so familiar to. I did however, have a new experience as we walked into Blues City Café for Memphis BBQ. As the group sat in the nearly empty room of the restaurant detailing the deliciousness of their rack of ribs or catfish, I slowly attempted to savor the flavor of my salad and French fries… New Orleans has never been so close to home.
And then there was Graceland…
In my twenty years of being a Memphian I had refused to step foot into the tourist trap that is Graceland. And there I was, map in hand and headphones clicked on, being herded into the bus (that took us across the street…) As we were ‘politely’ pointed and directed through Elvis’ home I found myself being just as visually intrigued by the people who were there as by the jungle room or gold-record lined walls. There was such an interesting dichotomy of ‘tourist’ within Graceland – while we were examining the representation of Memphis through Graceland, there were some who were extremely emotional, some who felt nostalgia, and some who were only there because “it’s Graceland.” Once the tour concluded, we spent some time in the Multiple gift shops where we quickly realized that you could put Elvis’ face on ANYTHING.
As the day began to conclude we drove from the city of Memphis into the suburb of Germantown, utilizing the drive as an opportunity to visualize the segregation in housing and neighborhoods. As we neared Germantown my stomach tied itself into a huge knot. My two social circles were colliding in front of me and I had absolutely no control in the embarrassing pictures and jabs in jest. But my parents created an (as always) amazing full Indian meal and dessert to follow. The conversation focused around my parents’ histories and biographies as well as what Memphis meant to them.
As we drove back to the bus to unwind, I felt a sense of comfort and excitement that I had been longing for in the last two months finally hit me. I realized that while our first stop was Home and difficult to grasp with an unbiased perspective, hearing my parents recount their feelings about why they chose to make Memphis my home showed me that regardless of the pre-packaged an promoted image that all of the cities on our trip embody and perpetuate, there remains an untapped and more hopeful perspective that I soon hope to discover…