Has Anyone Seen My Hat?

There is a time in the early Texas summer that makes me feel life is good.  The time is brief and you'd best put a hitch in yer giddyup or you mighten miss it.

The time is early morning.  Before the heat has decided to fully descend and settle.  If you are lucky, as I am right now, there will be a breeze.

My children and the cicadas are still sleeping.  The neighbor's rooster is not, but like me he never sleeps.

The wind mixed with the dull hum of everyone's AC unit is all I have for company.

My favorite coffee  cup is next to me and my feet are up.  The heat is just barely touching my toes.

In a few short hours I wont be able to walk on my deck barefoot because it would be walking on a stovetop.

In a few hours I will be inside with my blackout curtains drawn and doing all I can to pretend it is not so hot.

I have often lamented the heat of Texas and its original settlers.  They must have arrived in March clueless to what was coming.

I often question why anyone would stay here.  Texans love their Texas and I have met more people from here that would never leave than I have the opposite.

I have asked myself why I stay here.

The answer is simple.  Because I have to.  I have roots.  Not the familial kind, the kind that come in the form of a mortgage, a bad economy, a job that requires a clientele.

Roots that dictate garbage is to be put out on Wednesday night and recycling is every other Thursday.

I planted five little trees here and my roots are by proxy to them.  This is their state, their home.

Texas  does fascinate me.  The small towns with the ornate courthouses.  The barns with state flag painted on them. The ghost towns hidden away at the end of dirt roads.  The sprawling cities that don't seem like cities at all to me. The secret water holes that people actually call "water holes" and they are not much of a secret.  A town that is all German smack dab in the middle of the state where you can buy hand forged iron door knockers and have german potato salad served hot.

I once met a man named Bob who tipped his ten gallon hat and said, "Call me 'Cowboy Bob' most everyone does round here"  and yes he had a mustache that did the most amazing curl.  I can not imagine Cowboy Bob walking along the third street promenade in Santa Monica, or ordering a pie in New Jersey and not knowing it was pizza he was ordering not apple.

Cowboy Bob would not sit well at a table covered in brown paper and have beer battered crabs unceremoniously dumped in front of him.

Cowboy Bob is exactly where he needs to be.  He is as much a part of his surroundings as they are him.

I envy Cowboy Bob.  He knows his place. He loves his place.

Me, I was born a southerner, raised a Jersey girl, and settled in Texas.

Wherever I lay my hat is home, I just have so many hats to choose from.