I've written about my love affair with the Hill Country region of Texas, my home state. There's another part of Texas that's in my blood. It's the coastal plains of South Texas, where my family has deep roots.
In the early 1800s, the Spanish Crown granted land to my several-times great-grandfathers in the harsh chaparral of what is now South Texas. They owned thousands of acres of the dry, scrubby lands in the 19th century. Cactus and sage, mesquite and live oaks covered the lands on which they grazed cattle.
As Texas became part of independent Mexico, its own republic for a time, and then part of the United States, my ancestors sold off their ranch lands bit by bit and subdivided the remaining portions among their children. They were land rich but cash poor, and they endured many hardships. Weather was a constant threat: hurricanes, drought, killing frost. They fortified their homes against Indian raids, leaving only tiny windows in their dark, mud-brick dwellings. Northern settlers placed increasing pressure on their lands after the Civil War.
These tough-skinned Texans of Spanish/Mexican descent survived thanks to their strong Catholic faith, an unwavering reliance on family, and a fundamental belief in education. My grandparents lived these beliefs and passed them on to their twelve children. Their children--my cousins and I, dispersed as we are, many of us far away from Texas--carry in our hearts these traditions rooted in the very soil of South Texas.
I only get a chance to visit Texas once a year, and even less often do I make it all the way to South Texas. This Easter the memory of my grandparents, my brother, and my aunt and uncles who have passed away drew me back. My memories of childhood visits to my grandparent's house are vibrant and joyous, like the multicolored confetti inside the cascarones (confetti eggs) that my cousins and I hunted at Easter.
It's hard to adjust to how my grandparents' little town has changed. Their old, welcoming home where we spent many holidays was torn down over a decade ago, and only one rose bush remains from my grandmother's front garden, where the roses that she hand-watered with a long hose bloomed as wide as plates. The fig tree whose delicate fruits were within easy reach of my hands is gone, and the spreading branches of the ebony trees have been damaged by frost. The back yard where my cousins and I hunted Easter eggs is overgrown with weeds.
The busy highway that leads to the Rio Grande Valley now bypasses the town. The sound of 18-wheelers hauling oranges and grapefruits and watermelons from the Valley to the north that was once like a lullaby when I slept at my grandparents' house is absent. When we got a chance to play at the school playground, it was a scary thrill to cross the highway, waiting for a break in the speeding cars, but now only a few slow trucks pass through. The little store where my cousins and I bought candy with the quarters my grandfather put in our pockets is shuttered.
What remains then? The land itself and, right now, in the brief spring before the unrelenting heat of Texas summer, the profusion of wildflowers that claim the roadside ditches and fallow fields. They are the land's brief taste of sweetness, both a memory and a promise.
Red Poppy (Argemone sanguinea)
I woke up this morning with a lovely, precise memory of my grandmother's garden. She lived in an apartment, and her garden was a tall metal shelf of succulents that stood on her front "porch" that overlooked the apartment's common area. I'd sit way back on the deep metal seat of her lawn chair and rock, the chair back scraping the brick window sill. I watched my grandmother water the plants with a coffee can, pushing the stems aside with a gentle touch.
I spent most of the day Saturday indoors at a native plants symposium, and then most of the day Sunday cleaning out my office and filing literally years of paper. But I finally found the files I was looking for, and look what else I was able to dust off and put together: my collection of covered stones from Margie Oomen (
