My Kentucky: Heartland & Lexington

I grew up in Elizabethtown, Kentucky; Elizabethtown is a booming and growing city located about 35 minutes south of Louisville. Elizabethtown, or E-town as it's known by locals, was always known for being the "city" in close proximity to Fort Knox. This fact made E-town somewhat of a transient city. I had several friends growing up who were from military families that would move to E-town for a few years and then set sail to another city. As a matter of fact, I often find myself wondering what happened to those long lost elementary friends. My parents took me to Louisville frequently starting at a young age. As I turned 16, I was eager and willing to load my car up with girlfriends and head up to the malls in Louisville to shop.

After High School I attended The University of Kentucky. I quickly fell in love with Lexington as it was much different than the central Kentucky area that I was accustomed to. Lexington had that southern charm and small town feel while being a bigger city. I would move back to Lexington in a heartbeat. I love everything about that city. Springtime is a time of renewal- I have fond memories of walking at the UK Arboretum and gearing up for the Keeneland spring meet. Fall means back to school and the Woodland Arts fair.

I would be lying if I said that I didn't miss Kentucky. I go back quite often to visit my parents in Elizabethtown and pop in to Lexington and Louisville every now and again.

My Kentucky: Eastern, Central and Beyond...

My Kentucky is a sleepy rural town where every grocery shopping trip includes a half hour or so for socializing.

My Kentucky is hitting up tailgates in the Orange, Blue and Purple Lots, making plans for the following day's races, and analyzing the Dribble-Drive offense.

My Kentucky is being seated between Congressional candidates and tattooed hipsters at the latest Highlands hotspot, and finding neither to be out of place.

I grew up in a tiny Eastern Kentucky coal camp town of five hundred or so people,  the same town where my parents were high school sweethearts.  My paternal grandparents each logged four decades of service to the local school system, and countless people learned to read under my grandmother's instruction.  It's the kind of town where everyone is a teetotaler, despite the fact that most of us are descended from a moonshiner or two.  It's the kind of town where church dinners and high school basketball games are still important community events.  It's the kind of town where you're never asked your name at the pharmacy or the dry cleaners.  Everyone simply knows who you are.

Like most small-town Kentuckians, I moved to Lexington for college when I was seventeen.  Here, I learned about a way of Kentucky life that was as foreign to me as the customs of far-off continents.  Horse farms and bourbon and country clubs weren't a part of the Kentucky of my childhood, nor was rush hour traffic. Soon, I found that Lexington was more a large town than a small city -- it was friendly, inviting and comfortable.  I stayed in Lexington for several years after college and grad school; I cheered on my beloved Wildcats, watched the races at Keeneland, and attended more Cheapside Happy Hours than one should proudly acknowledge.  I found that I truly loved the vibe and aesthetic of that town; I proudly adopted its equestrian-prep clothing and needlepoint belts as well as  its slavish devotion to the "inside the Circle" lifestyle.  Lexington became the town I love.

I moved to Louisville for work in my late twenties.  Ironically enough, it was in the most fast-paced, Midwestern city in Kentucky that I fell in love with a fellow Eastern Kentuckian, with whom I'd attended undergrad.  We quickly came to love the quirky Highlands neighborhood where we settled.  We found ourselves immersed in a foodie culture, setting our Saturday morning alarm clocks early enough to beat the local sous chefs to the farmers' market.   We took our Labrador puppy to Starbucks and Irish pubs, where he was treated like a rock star.  We kept Louisville weird, as they say.  Or, at least as weird as a corporate lawyer and a Junior Leaguer can keep things.

A few years ago, my beau and I moved to Nashville for his work.  As we made friends and contacts in the Music City, I found myself speaking for all things Kentucky: I gave advice on baking with bourbon (that Tennessee swill will never be bourbon. End of story.), buying Derby tickets, tailgating in Lexington,  making quilts, and the best restaurants along every major highway in the state.  I found that, despite the cognitive dissonance I'd always assigned to the three chapters of my Kentucky life, I simply knew and loved my home state.  And, when we eventually moved back to Lexington, we realized that any corner of the Commonwealth was "home."

Welcome, Y'all!

HerKentucky is a collective of six women bloggers who love our beautiful, diverse Commonwealth. As we began planning our blog, we found that each of our experiences and tastes were shaped by the Kentucky regions where we'd lived.  We talked about the geography and customs of our hometowns, and how Kentucky symbols held various roles in our culture -- horses symbolize the racing lifestyle to some of us, and  are farm animals to others.  In some of our hometowns, bourbon is a way of life; in others, it's forbidden.  As we talked, we realized that, for each of us, "my Kentucky" means something different...

And so we --Cristina, Emily, (a.k.a. Skinny Emmie), Heather, Hunter,Megan, and Sarah-- welcome you to HerKentucky!

We look forward to sharing our experiences and starting a dialogue about Kentucky with all of you.

Cheers!