On a sunny day in April 2013, Carla and I made a trip to the Farmer’s Market downtown by the old train station on GE Patterson. I remember it as being the first really warm day of the year and the first time I’d seen Carla in too long. Our Midtown walks had been long established as our broken heart charms – that thing we each had one half of that only had the other half as a match. My end of those Midtown walks was the StEnds to her BeFri. We liked looking at things. Houses mostly. We liked wondering what was inside of them, or what could be inside, or what once was inside that is inside no longer. We drew parallels in our lives and personalities to the stories we saw etched in buildings and homes and yards. For years we threatened to give Memphis its first “Knock Knock Blog.” A wildly successful blog consisting of nothing but stories about the time we knocked on a stranger’s door and asked to come in and see their house. We’d dream of writing about how interesting it was that the kitchen had such unique tiling or the living room had lovely stained glass features or the master bath still had the original claw foot tub. Ours were lofty imaginings, likely based on the deeply embedded belief (or maybe just the hope) that EVERYONE’S lives were more interesting than our own. That behind every closed door is something special – something just absolutely BUSY with its specialness. And then that sunny day in April 2013, upon leaving the Farmer’s Market, we took a walk. It didn’t start with a house. It started up a stairway to nowhere.

Memphians, particularly downtowners, may recognize this staircase by the train station – you may have even gone up them. You may even live at the top of them. But for a couple of Midtowners, we were grossly intrigued. “Um. What’s that? Up there?” “Is that…..is that stairs??” “Where do they GO???” “I dunno. Wanna find out?” “I don’t…I mean, yeh, I do, but….I mean, yeh ok. Weird.” It sounds absurd now that our adventuring has reached new levels, but at the time it was like stepping into Narnia. Is it going to be winter all the time at the top of those stairs? What if there’s bears???” But there weren’t bears. Have you ever stepped out of a giant hole and stood on top of a city? That’s what walking up those stairs felt like. That’s the best I can describe it. Right at the curving corner of a gorgeous rusted railway our eyes saw everything Memphis can offer – they saw the back of an old city that once housed flourishing stores and businesses that had been forgotten, remembered again, and are now being lived in as modern homes for what we can only imagine as clever and creative people in a city that is starting to thrive again – the College of Art we didn’t know was there, old warehouses turned into amazing condos, the horizon over the river, the original cobblestone of the city’s streets, some of the most majestic houses in town, THE most majestic abandoned building on the bluff, and, ya know, a personless shoe or two. Not to mention the artwork on the backs of these buildings we didn’t know were there on a track invisible from the street up a stairway that at first seemed to go to nowhere in the middle of a city that can so suddenly and deeply surprise you. Those 21 steps up changed our lives.

It’s a little less about what we saw and a little more about what we felt, but suddenly Memphis as a whole came into a deeper and clearer view. It’s a city that does not apologize. A city that doesn’t ask questions. It’s sort of like not-really knowing someone for a long time and then finally REALLY understanding that person through mannerism alone. It’s a recognition. A solitary importance. Carla and I started to believe Memphis existed just for us. Like we were on a movie set that we didn’t know we were on. We envisioned hidden cameramen cuing to assistants that we were “about to turn the corner, quick, cue friendly helpful lady in green to open up door number 2 on set platform number 5 where they’ll find remarkable place number 8!!” We kept seeing tables for 2 that we thought were placed just for us.

In short, we recognized and embraced Memphis for its hold it had on us. A city on the breaking edge of new but not letting go of its old. A city old enough to know what we want and young enough to give it to us. A city merciless to outside criticism but wholly embracing of care. A city that gets under your skin and leaves you wanting more – more authenticity, more originality, more life. A city on fire. And still, all at once.

So Carla started taking more photos. At first they were of people. People loving the city as we did. But then, suddenly, as Memphis does, it was more.

I, Courtney, am merely writing these words. But I just take walks with my friend Carla and she points and shoots and produces some amazingly vibrant images of this city we love. We are continuously finding Memphis. This website exists because we can’t stand the thought of someone living here and not seeing the beauty and the potential inside of their own backyards. Because someone this very day, in my car as I drove from Midtown to Downtown on Vance said “Wow this is weird, I feel like we’re in another city,” and a fellow passenger said “Yeh, that’s how she always drives. Down the streets no one ever thinks to drive.”

Because we are always finding Memphis.