"Smokey Mountain Musings" West Knoxville by Espresso_girl

You might not ever think of it this way, but Knoxville is a great town for writers. It’s the place where Frances Hodges Burnet’s Vagabondia Castle stood with its secret gardens on a soft lawn that led down to Tennessee River. Alexander Haley called it home till the end of his life and James Agee’s childhood in Fort Sanders was the inspiration for “A Death in the Family”. I think there must be a writer’s muse woven in to the banks of the Tennessee River where it bends around in the rocky arms of the valley. The downtown of Knoxville, despite much reinvention has a crumbling feel. Ghosts from a little known, but fascinating History walk its streets. It is just vacant enough to give space for thought but just vital and old enough to inspire Art.

I am opening a new chapter of my life in Knoxville, or rather I am picking up where I left off on an old chapter. After pleasant year spent on Merritt Island in Florida as a coffee barista, I will be trying to finish a PhD in Physics and working for a Mad Scientist (mad but not evil), who wants me to program robot Lagos for my bread and butter.
My basic soul is made of rock so the Smokey Mountains suit me well, but so much water and coffee crept in to my spirit from the vicinity of Merritt Island that it will be a hard adjustment none the less.