Now I know why Leon Hale (Long-time Houston Post and Houston Chronicle columnist on all things “Texas” – now semi-retired) sits on his front porch to write so often. The sounds of the country are so different from the sounds of the city. I opened the door and heard a cow bawling in the distance. I wondered if he was like my grandchildren calling for his mother to get up and come play. Maybe he wanted a smoothie just like Sarah does when she wakes up. When I walked down the path to photograph the bluebonnets just waking up, a hawk flew out of the old wooden barn and took off for work. While I was making coffee to drink in the rocking chair on the porch, three vivid red birds were literally frolicking in the front yard right outside “my” kitchen window. By the time I got my camera, they were gone. They were unbelievably red and looked so comfortable in the country. I wondered if they felt sorry for their city slicker cousins that had to live in people’s backyards or manmade bird sanctuaries.
I have always considered myself a city girl. Amarillo was way too small and slow for me. Austin and Houston were more my style. When my son lived in NYC and London, I lived vicariously through his AMAZING subway adventures, his late nights in SOHO & Midtown and his Upper West Side “cool” city apartment shared with three other guys and an occasional rat. Why every time we talked to him, without fail, we could hear the fire truck’s siren as it raced past his window from the firehouse down the street. How could anyone live in the country? Why, it’s so quiet out in the country. I like the sounds of the city. Now, I am saying, “Why, it’s so quiet out here! Isn’t it grand!?” Why would anyone run off for a vacation in a manmade resort when they could soak up nature that is right in front of us? All morning the birds have been rehearsing a song that I haven’t heard sung in the city.
Don’t get me wrong, I still like big city things and trips to big city places; now, I just value what I didn’t understand at an earlier age. Aunt Evelyn, (you’ve met Aunt Evelyn in my blog to Isabella back in June) lived out in the country near San Angelo. She loved birds and I particularly remember her having a love affair with a red bird that visited quite often. She had a great collection of china birds. I decided that I would collect bird figurines, too. Or did she give them to me….I can’t remember….maybe it was the horse figurines that I decided to collect because, Mollie, Aunt Evelyn’s daughter, and my first and only girl cousin, collected them as well. Well, I have long packed those bird and horse figurines away in a box for china and crystal and other grown up girl things. I think I will go home and see if I can find them. They will remind me of fond memories with important people in special places.
I think I am beginning to understand why Aunt Evelyn got up so early out there in that quiet, peaceful countryside. This morning I find myself singing “You Ask me What I Like About Texas,” one of my favorite Gary P. Nunn songs, and Cory Morrow’s song, “Texas Time Traveling” as I finish writing this and head to Round Top for a late breakfast.
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