Not sure where to put this. But had to write it down. Here seems as good a place as any.
Work took me to S. Texas the last couple of days, and while I was down there (and especially on the drive), a whole lot of family history – both old, and ongoing – washed the hell over me. Hard, like "pounding me into the sand till I come up wet and sputtering." My family roots in S. Texas are deep as hell, from before Texas was just Texas. My daughter and I spent much of this past Sunday with my dad, recording stories and looking over family history, photos, and documents. Looking at a particular document my dad pulled out of an old box, I realized that I had family here when it was “Coahuila y Tejas” (also reminding me that my Texan family history and Mexican family history overlap like hell). GGGG uncle was big in the Mexican gov’t, had to work with Santa Anna to get shit done (and was one of the first Mexican officials to support deposing him). True to family form, he died penniless. My parents both grew up in S. Texas, and met and married there. We'd visit the area often when I was a kid. So being down there hit me hard with a “holy shit, this is where I’m from” reminder – sledgehammer hard.
What got to me most was the drive. I stayed the night in Beeville. Beeville, where my mother, poor as hell having just fled an abusive family situation in NOLA with her mother, landed in 1950 or so. At one point, they bought a mangy old horse, which she rode to school, as other kids did back in those days. I remember as a child going to visit family in S. Texas, and seeing the landscape of brush and thorns out my car window, broken up by spring wildflowers, took me right back. My parents’ lives in S. Texas weren’t easy, and often weren’t happy. Life was fucking hard there. I'm sure it still is for plenty of folks. But it was where their lives were lived, nonetheless. It helped make them who they became. And it’s where they met and ended up together. So the place became part of my life. The scenery rolling by as I drove home had childhood memories unrolling in my mind, like a highlight reel. Mesquite thorns in my heel, fishing in the bays, sitting on a shaded patio while the adults smoked and drank and I eavesdropped, the smell of the summer dust, and the voices of people long-dead.
I saw lots of oilpatch activity around Karnes City. My family was oilpatch. I know those people. Those people raised me. I don’t know what will come of the Texas oilpatch, long-term, but there’s no denying that it’s part of our identity. I remembered visions of dirty boots, rough hands, the smell of hot vinyl car seats and dust as I tagged along with my grandfather to read meters.
Instead of plugging in my phone’s playlist in the car, I did something I like to do on long drives – hit “scan” on the radio, and see what’s up. Lots of Spanish language radio. Plenty of religious radio. A mix of pop, hip-hop, the usual. And plenty of country. Including a station playing classics. The very stuff we listened to in my dad’s old Lincoln as we drove down there during the heat of summer to see family. I let some of the music take me back, as it can do. I just rode the wave. I remembered my mother’s laugh in the front seat of the car as my dad cracked some sort of joke. My mom died almost three years ago. Fucking hell I miss her.
Lost reception of that station. Scanned over to another station, playing a mix of country, old, new, Americana. Caught a song that sounded Robert Earl Keen-ish (but wasn’t). But it got me in an REK mood. So I popped that playlist on from my phone. Goddamn I love me some REK. Played some songs I love – songs most fans know well. But then I went down the rabbit hole, and played some deep cuts. Played a couple from the Live Album. Got to “If I Were King.”
I started to sing along. But I choked up, and couldn’t go on. I just listened, as fat tears rolled down my face, I couldn’t stop ‘em from coming. It’s the song I sang over and over to my infant daughter as a lullaby. I’d hum the fiddle parts, and sing the words as she looked up at me and smiled, refusing to go to sleep as she was so wont to do (she was our lousy sleeper baby). I’d sing it again. And again. Till her eyes got heavy, and finally closed. Then I’d walk the floor with her a little more, just humming the tune softly till I knew she was out.
Tomorrow, we put that girl on a plane to London, where she is moving to find work, and hopefully start to find her way in life. She graduated college in May, and since then, has been a bit lost. She’s been working here, making money, and trying to figure out what’s next. She wants to do something that utilizes her multi-language skills, and London has such jobs in spades. She was eligible for a two-year blanket visa, so she activated it as of last week, and will be there tomorrow. Maybe it’s where she’ll live and make her life. Maybe not. She’s not keen on Texas, and for her skillset, I doubt Texas is in her future; I probably don't want it to be, for her. It struck me that our family has been in Texas for over 200 years, and away she goes, away our family goes, maybe never to return. Until recently, that had never occurred to me – that our family’s run in Texas may be coming to a close. Such is the way of the world.
I spent the drive with ghosts riding shotgun, listening to echoes, and pondering history. Texas has been so formative to me. I’m a child of its dirt, its people, its food, its flaws….all of it. But my girl's getting on a plane, and from now on, maybe Texas is just a place she comes back and visits. That hit me fucking hard. That Texas is going to be in the rearview mirror. It’s just a piece of dirt. But goddammit, it’s my heart. It’s so much of my heart. And it always fucking will be. And so will she.