Texian

I wrote a variation of this some while ago when I still lived full-time in Texas.  It is enough to start with, tonight. 

“Think of what you love so much, hold so deeply that you are willing to defend and possibly even die for it.  We will call that Texas.”

That is misquoted slightly from the movie rendition of The Alamo, and it’s what I needed to hear.  That movie summed up all the things I awkwardly or ineffectually try to explain to people about why I love Texas.  I was born in California, raised in Hawaii for some years, and came to Texas to stay not long before my teen years.  I have been here a lifetime already, and I would have to say it is only in fleeting moments that I ever felt this place could be a home. 

Until I saw that movie, which brought to the surface thoughts and idle fancies that had just sort of percolated in my subconscious.  I’ve ever been sure I’d have a home in Texas, among half a dozen others scattered round the world.  Now I know I could be content with just the one, so long as it was here. 

I used to think Hawaii was my home because it was so damned beautiful, paradise on earth, beauty in every sweep of a wave against shoreline.  I thought it was really home.  It’s become a dream over the years, though, a misty longing for a time when I wasn’t innocent, but when I felt that it wasn’t a mark against me.  I still miss it, but it’s only memory now, not prophecy.  I do not know if I will return– I swore years ago I wouldn’t return except to live, no visits allowed.  It is likely I may not see Hawaii ever again, given the strange way I love to think of it, but can’t bear the thought of actually seeing it again, older and unveiled.  I don’t know if I want to see that pretty lady in the bright sunlight at this point.

As for California, I was seduced some years ago into reclaiming it as home, and I may yet come to live there in some future time.  But it’s more like a vacation home to me– somewhere you can safely put your feet up and relax, but not where you build your permanent havens. 

Texas, though, she is always with me.  Even when I felt most at home in California, in the back of my mind I dreamt of the day I could have that feeling in Texas, in a home of my own to change or keep as I would.  There’s still room here, room to spread and grow and be who I wish to be, with whomever wishes to share this land with me.  I love this place so damned much, and it took a movie to remind me of what I really already knew deep down.  I’m a Texan and I’m simply not ashamed to say that, and live it. 

NB: I looked it up on the intarweb and the phrase I’d sought is ‘whatever it is you value so highly’.