“Broad is the Way, but Narrow is the Gate”

Only 3 months into living here in Nashville, the shiny luster of the city lights on the honkytonks of Broadway had become lost on me, and the streets seemed exposed for what they really were- a ridiculous mix of drunk tourists, drama-filled bachelorette parties, and a rampant homelessness epidemic lining the streets with scruffy individuals, whose only hope lie in cardboard signs and the refuge of church entryways made of brick they could retreat to for sleep.

Someone once pointed out that Vegas looks glamorous at night but is revealed to be an uncanny, fake, and hollow place when the daylight sun reaches it. The same can be said of Broadway.

I wanted to capture the kind of heaviness and raw hedonism that seemed to infest the downtown area and share it with others as a warning against excessive drinking, hookup culture, and the indifference to the suffering of the homeless.

Although I am atheist now, I was raised as a very fundamentalist evangelical Christian. And although my belief in god didn’t stick, my puritanical beliefs and moral compass did. Some see me as rigid. I see it as useful- being sober and celibate has avoided me a great deal of heartache and hangovers. Given my alternative lifestyle, I see this street with a more critical eye than most other partying 20-somethings.

However, as I took my camera along for the nightly scouting, I was surprised by the amalgamation of moments I captured. Most were chaotic and anxiety-inducing as I expected, but some were funny, some broke my heart, and others captured a kind of joy I wasn’t expecting to find amongst the wild intemperance and beer-bottle strewn alleys. The air still smelled like urine and beer. Some parts of the block still had a suspiciously warm and humid air that made me want to hold my breath.

But I also found people dancing in the middle of it all.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrowis the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”