Southern girl in the big city

It's been two-and-a-half years since I drove that 18-foot moving truck into Manhattan, barreling over the George Washington Bridge like I owned the road -- and leaving permanent grip marks in the steering wheel.

I knew I was a big fish from a small pond moving to a much, much larger pond, but in truth, I had absolutely no idea how big that new pond would be. I was thinking I'd be like one of those fatty goldfish. In fact, I was a tadpole. Because New York City is about as different from Edisto Beach, S.C., as you can get.

A few weeks after settling in, I decided it was time to get my music chops greased back up and let Manhattan know who had come to town. I had played as a regular at Edisto's famed "Whalin' at Whaley's," after all. So I started looking around for open mics and realized all of them wanted me to play original music. (You mean a cover version of "Brown Eyed Girl" is not the standard by which all musicianship is measured?)

To make a long story short, I wrote a song and dragged my two roommates with me to a tiny dive in the East Village. It took a shot of tequila, but I convinced myself to play that one song to a small crowd that had gathered around the bar. Then I made my way straight for the door, because throwing up is never a classy act, no matter which part of the country you're in.

I'll leave out the disgusting part, but let me just tell you that the nerves and the adrenalin were unreal.

At the same time, I felt like I'd conquered the world.

Afterwards, Athana, J.D. and I went out to some great Italian hole-in-the-wall (checkered tablecloths and all) and celebrated. We called home to South Carolina (well, really, we called Whaley's, since we knew that's where everyone would be) and my old bar crowd toasted my big-city success. Even through the phone I could hear the cheers.

Now I look back and think ... All that, for one song in front of 12 people in some dark, neon-lit, now-closed dive. I had no concept of just how large the mountain was that I stood next to and had started to (blindly) climb.

I don't regret taking those first steps, naively as I planted them. But now it's spring of 2008 and I've just finished my first album. I still have a long way to go. But it's important to pause and remind myself of just how far I've come.