Vendor Spotlight

Teresa Simpson knows she’s here for a reason

BY HANNAH HERNER

Teresa Simpson loves people. She’s quick to laugh with them and quick to cry. And people who pass her spot have come to love her back. Since the fall of 2019, she’s put away her “living on a prayer” cardboard sign, and become a favorite selling The Contributor at White Bridge Road and Harding Pike in Green Hills.

Jamie W., who sells just a couple of blocks away, was the one who helped Simpson get started.

“I started actually making more money when I started selling the paper because people look at that as a job, they really do,” she says. “They feel that that’s a job and you’re trying to earn and just be honest about your money.”

Simpson was born in Baptist Hospital (now known as Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital). Having grown up in Nashville, she sees good and bad in the city’s growth.

“I’m glad people are not as redneck as they used to be.” She says her father was a redneck, someone who didn’t accept people of color, and even her own younger brother, who was gay.

“I listened to my mother. At first I started listening to my father, and I was like ‘that’s not right’ they’re human too, they bleed, they have feelings,” she says.

She’s quick to get emotional when talking about her younger brother Michael. The two were very close. “That was my baby,” she says.

He died of HIV, “back when you couldn’t tell anyone that you knew anyone with it,” she chokes up.

For less redneck ideology, it’s become harder for her to stay in this city she calls home. For now, she pays weekly rent at a motel.

“The cost of living is crazy,” Simpson says. “That’s all they try to do now is drive out the people that had cheap rent. Now it’s into phenomenal numbers where people can’t even live where they were living and it’s sad.”

Simpson has been to every state in the country except for Washington and Oregon. Her job handling close out sales at furniture stores took her to lots of small towns, and she loved doing her best to fit in and earn the trust of the people there.

“I loved it,” she says. “I did do well. I made a lot of money and I blew a lot of money. If I went five minutes from now I can honestly say I’ve seen places that most people have never seen.”

In her life, Simpson has also worked in carnivals, was a caretaker for her mother, worked as a nanny, and in the ’70s and ’80s she was a topless dancer.

“I’m not proud of everything I’ve done, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not ashamed of it either. That’s what makes me. I’m no one to judge. I mean, looking at me, you would have never thought I was a titty dancer,” she laughs.

Simpson struggled with addiction, but has been sober for more than a year now, a fact that she’s very proud of and quick to mention. Things changed for Simpson when she overdosed on narcotics for the second time, which she was originally given for back pain. She had to be administered Narcan six times this time.

“I was like, I’m here for a reason, I don’t need this,” she says.

A suboxone program helps her stay on track. Still, it can be hard to get the pain under control.

“These people are really good to me out here,” Simpson says. “This Christmas I know I missed a lot of money, but it doesn’t really matter to me, because I’ve had a lot of them during the year, they could just tell I didn’t feel good. Some of them would go to the bank and come back and say, ‘here, I don’t want to see you for a few days.’ That’s good people.”

Simpson is more than “living on a prayer” now.