In Search of Dessert

My parents moved from my birthplace of Austin, Texas when I was one year old. Yet, I’ve managed to visit Texas, one way or another, every year of my life – always collecting mental souvenirs of the place I call home, from miles, states or oceans away. My experiences in Texas have ranged from visiting the grandparents, winning medals in a rodeo and working in a big company after college, and thus I have formed a mental scrapbook of Texas — the pages bedaubed with words, images, tastes and smells. Occasionally in my present life, I look up from some mindless task I’ve been doing, and feel surprised. The air I am breathing, the walls, the sky out the window – nothing feels familiar, except a tiny throbbing from deep inside. I  recognize this feeling. It is a certain piece of my soul , which is often tucked away into dormancy as my life twists and turns, coming up for air, and confused by what it sees upon rising. This is not a Texas sky, it says, as if bewildered that I’d be under any other. This air does not smell like Texas, it says. That’s when I go flipping through this scrapbook, whose cover reads: Texas Is…

Dust-devils and rhinestones cowboy boots. A thirty thousand dollar millionaire. The carpet of the Odessa airport; the first smell of desert as I fall out of the winding door. Greenville  on St. Paddy’s day and 6th Street on New Years. Tiny women and large hoop earrings. The cheerleader next door and her giant smile. BBQ brisket. Ben’s Little Mexico – always the second day of the visit. A tip of a hat and a Yes, ma’am. The taste of Flouride when I brush my teeth.  A glass of water with too many ice cubes. Pick-up trucks and Bluebell Ice Cream. Football legends on the walls of restaurants. Learning to two-step, balanced on Poppy’s toes. An infinite West Texas sunset, divided by the silhouettes of lingering oil rigs. Horny toads spitting blood on my Keds. The danger of a southern drawl and a   "Have a good one," and "I’m fixin’ to." Riding the bronc at  Red River. The Lone Star. Flaming Dr.Peppers. Exaggeration (the photo’s this big….). Rowdiness, stubborness and pride.

My friends chide me that I call myself a Texan, when I was raised in the Midwest nearly from birth. (Isn’t the fact that I’ve been insisting for 24 years proof enough? I’m stubborn as all hell.) I can’t help it – it’s in my blood. Maybe others feel it for a place they’ve never even been yet, they just know if when they get there. The day my parents carried me home from the hospital, wild Texas Bluebonnets were blooming across the hill country. Perhaps I swallowed a seed in the air, because Texas is lodged within me, wherever I go, wherever I’d hang my hat, if I wore one. It isn’t always living in a place, but that place living in you, that makes it home. Like they say, Texas is a state of mind.