A city for a canvas

So I returned from a nice, lengthy stay in Texas yesterday and couldn’t have been more depressed about coming back. It never fails though, for days after coming back to the city from home, I’m a Debbie Downer. Sometimes that mood stays with me for months. Sometimes it doesn’t.

I remember thinking while driving the last few hours back to my small hometown that I had forgotten how big the Texas sky is. It’s expansive, consuming, and simply put, breath-takingly beautiful. When I saw it, I felt a pang in my heart. The sky never looks like this in Chicago. There’s some freeing sense of an uninhibited atmosphere that just draws you to it - to want to lie down and gaze up for hours despite the periodical onset of dizzyness. It’s almost spiritual. And the Texas sky always makes me feel connected, deeply, to Something Larger than Life.

That sky (a pic in the above post), along with various other factors, has made me realize that my love for the Lone Star State will ultimately draw me back to it permanently. I can’t even stay gone long enough to be fully content with my home here in the Windy City. It makes my heart hurt - I can feel it in my chest. I’m a Texan. I’ve been dubbed that by everyone I meet since I’ve moved here. When I first began work in the Governor’s Office, my nickname was “Texas.” My house family encourages me to test my Tex Mex and margaritas recipes on them, and my former Senate candidate pushes me to say “How y’all doin’?” because he likes the accent. I can’t escape it.

Texas is who I am.

And a body can’t live when separated from its soul. I’ll be back. I don’t know when, but I’ll be back.