Unexpected beauty

It's the end of November, and the full splendor of the autumn season is in effect in west Texas.  The leaves are stained-glass yellow and crimson in the sunlight, and the colors are more subtle than they are in the northeast region of the country, but still beautiful.

At my husband's parents' house in the San Angelo area, there is a town named Tankersley after my husband's great-great grandfather.  It's a tiny town, and it's like so many others in the area; land and minerals are passed from generation to generation, and if your land is only accessible via another family's land, it's best to keep a good relationship with them.

In years past, we have traveled to this part of the country and I didn't notice much but livestock, limestone, and railroad crossings.  The land my husband's family owns out there is covered with mesquite and the barest hint of rolling hills, the creaking of pumpjacks and windmills doing their respective jobs cutting through the sound of the wind.  Kalichi-covered roads lead to crude tanks and separators.

This trip, however, was different.  My in-laws purchased the property next to theirs and moved into the new house, with a beautiful yard bordering Concho Creek.  The old house had a brushy trail leading through seething piles of red ants and snakes lurking in the grass; the new house has a wide-open space from the porch to the creek.  For the first time, I noticed the creek oyster shells piled smoothly on the banks.  I noticed deposits of flint buried in sun-bleached limestone.  I noticed the sound of the babbling brook leading to swirling eddies and the constant splashing of a small man-made dam.

Butterflies alight inches from my son and flutter their wings languidly.  Pecan trees shed their fruit and my nephew dissects one to see what's inside.  My father-in-law reports seeing a rafter of wild turkeys strolling through the yard that morning, apparently confident that they're safe on this particular holiday weekend.   On the roads nearby, there is a cowboy hat in every other vehicle, and I see no one looking at or talking on the phone.  There is a distinctive one-finger wave that drivers use to greet vehicles traveling the opposite direction.

With our three-year-old son, my husband, my in-laws, and my sister-in-law and her family, we hopped from rock to rock across the shallow creek all day long.  We pretended to fish with long sticks, we wondered at tiny frogs the color of the sand on the creek bed, and we splashed in puddles in our boots.   I don't know if I've ever seen my son happier outdoors than he was this weekend.

Part of it, I think, is that the house doesn't have good cellular coverage and WiFi wasn't installed yet.  So we left our iPhones at the house and enjoyed the weather.  Started up a family baseball game.  Cooked.  Did puzzles.  Relaxed.  It was, as my friend Rachel says, a sunset moment.  Or, as Glennon Melton would say, a weekend of Kairos moments.

And at night, the stars shine as brightly as you'd imagine in a place with no street lights.  

After two days, my walk in my just-broken-in-after-three-years boots was slower and more deliberate.   I had always said I didn't know if I could live in a place like this, and at this point in my life, it's not practical.  But by the time we left, I wasn't ready to go.  Finding this kind of serenity and disconnectedness from the world at large was, to my surprise, a relief. 

Even after four years, there is still so much to explore of my new home state.  There is beauty to be found in every corner.

Love,