The first fiery blast of Texas came at San Angelo. We had flown south down the plains, the blue tarp flapping itself to shreds, Olivetti screeching, and it was morning. The red earth coughed heat at us like a smoker. I opened the door, and there she was: Texas. I went into one of those miserable country grocery stores where, mysteriously, there are only foods manufactured beyond all recognition (i.e. Lunchables, Oreos, Chee-zits, Coke... the majuscules are a give-away). I could write a whole post on the troubling state of food in the country: the richest farmlands are coopted for use by corporate feedlots and monoculture farms, and the old farmers on their shrinking plots perish of cancer and diabetes from eating the returns via the mega Walmart, sole employer in the country town. But I will resist.
I bought a couple of peaches and a box of Saltines, then pulled up the tarp to check on Olivetti. Her fur stuck out all over, her pupils were slits, and the tip of her petal tongue was pinched between her teeth. She was panting, and clearly on the verge of insanity. It was about 11 am, 90 degrees and climbing. We traveled on and the heat clawed higher: Eden, Menard. In Junction under the limestone cliffs, I rolled down the window and the heat came in differently, familiar; it was the Llano River losing itself in the air, and the air lying on my skin so much like water. I drank it in like a toad in a puddle, through the flesh. I felt like one of those brown balls of prickle they sell in highway gift shops in the Southwest under the sublime name of "resurrection fern": drop it in water and it opens up green and fat.
At my mother's house, we unloaded the boxes, the trappings of my Denver life, lonely-looking now, big with meaning, but without reference. I would have to remember it all alone here, I thought. Even that red umbrella, just an umbrella, but I held it over my head at our Free Sale in the muddy yard of Betsy House; Abraham laughed next to me, and Julia held the blue one beside; the friends crowded on the porch; the irises held their tattered heads up in the rain. Then walking with Abraham downtown, his umbrella blowing out like a black flower with every gust, my stiff red one next to it. What does it mean now, that red umbrella, or any of it?
With the family all together for a few minutes, grandparents, sisters, mother, an argument broke out over the question of Mormonism as a branch of Christianity. Yes, really. Given our exhaustion, certain of us got out of temper pretty quickly and the conversation had to be suppressed. This is my family: passionate, irrational, passionately rational. I took Olivetti inside, imagining that I would have to nurse her back to life and sanity over the coming weeks, fully expecting to pay for my treason at her claws. I opened the cage and she stepped out like a lady from her carriage, neither hurried nor perturbed. She gave me a forgiving look, permitted me to stroke her head, and began exploring the house.
In the evening we drove to my great-grandma's and played a few games of pitch, a favorite card game of the Alsatians governed by bizarre, arbitrary rules about as comprehensible to me as whale migration. Kendra and I won. I don't know how. I told my great-grandma that I'm leaving for Asheville in September to apprentice at a letterpress studio. She was surprised these still existed, and even more surprised that I would be interested in learning this antiquated art. Later, I pointed out proudly that I had made the dress I was wearing myself. She expressed astonishment, tugged on the seams, and said, "Well! It's probably better than the ones they make in Mexico," and slapped my ass. Thanks, grandma.
