the mother of all trips, chapter 7: texas wants you anyway

8/14/2019 The Mother of All Trips, Chapter 7: Texas Wants You Anyway

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The Mother of All Trips:

13 Months, 8 Stops, 1 Toddler

Chapter 7: Texas Wants You Anyway

By Mara Gorman

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visithttp://motherofalltrips.blogspot.com/; or, (b) send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 2ndStreet, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Copyright 2008 Mara Gorman
http://motherofalltrips.blogspot.com/http://motherofalltrips.blogspot.com/


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Mara Gorman 188The Mother of All Trips

I sipped coffee from a large ceramic mug and leaned against vibrant fuchsia silk

throw pillows. How were we ever going to keep the ivory cotton that covered the sofa

cushions ( la Shabby Chic) clean? I wondered idly. I wouldnt trust myselfwith a white

couch, let alone Tommy, who at 8 a.m. was busily burrowing in mulch in the well-fenced

backyard.

It was January third, our first full day in Austin, and it was 80 degrees. Everything

from the towels to my clothes felt unpleasantly moist. I had none of my usual military

zeal to immediately unpack and organize our possessions, despite the fact that this was a

relatively small task because we had shipped eight boxes of stuff that were yet to arrive.

If Tommy hadnt been there to wake me and Matt before six, I most likely would have

remained in the unfamiliar bed with its swampy sheets and wrought-iron headboard that

banged against the wall every time one of us moved.

Neither Matt nor I had ever been to Texas, which isnt to say that we didnt have

strong opinions about it. I, in particular, had a laundry list of Yankee prejudices. In my

own defense, I was raised by people who believed that New England is the geographic,

spiritual, and cultural center of the universe, or at least of the United States. My mother

was particularly bad; Im not sure that she ever remembered whether Matt grew up in

Wisconsin or Minnesota, or whether she even truly believed that these states were

distinct.

Marrying a Midwesterner had of course changed my perspective, especially after

many visits, but the farthest south I had ever made it in the middle of the country was

Kansas City, where my best friend lived. Texas was as remote to me as Mars and if you

had asked me to picture the landscape, the only image I would have been able to provide


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was a desert of cacti and cliffs perhaps taken from old Roadrunner cartoons. And my

other impressions were no less stereotypicalranches and rattlesnakes, talk about

remembering the Alamo and not messing with Texas, and oil millionaires who wore

cowboy hats and spurs and holsters (like James Dean in Giant).

Texas was less familiar to me than England or Italy, and even though we could

drive there, seemed farther away. In fact, it was the act of driving to Austinwhich took

us two days from Kansas City where we had stopped en route from Wisconsinthat

made it seem all the more distant. As we drove from Dallas to Austin, the vastness of the

sky added to my sense of dislocation. The road stretched out, unimaginably long and flat,

except around the cities where the multilevel highways with long sculptural ramps curled

sinuously around one another, soaring heavenward. Austin might well have been the only

city on the planet. There was no way to orient ourselves. We were on our own.

And I felt like it that first morning as I got up and wandered around the modest

bungalow, examining the dining table with its crackled top and sage-green legs, the

gilded icons of the Madonna, the art and design books stacked stylishly on the floor, and

four heavy, ornate, wooden picture frames, placed one inside the other and leaned up

against the ruby surface of the wall. It was immediately obvious that the childless couple

we rented from had selected their belongings during long Sunday afternoons in antique

and thrift stores where they purchased retro-chic items to set up in tableaux copied from

design magazines.

The effect of the furnishings and the wall coloringssome walls a pale acid

green, others a deep cranberrywas far more funky and hip than any I would ever

achieve in my own home. Normally I would have enjoyed the chance to pretend that I


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could decorate a house to look so cool, especially since it meant all of the shopping had

been done for me. But that first morning it felt a little strange. The ceilings seemed low,

the rooms small. The owners had left sticky notes all over that asked us to avoid using

certain items or telling us where we could find extra blankets, but instead of making me

feel welcome these messages just reminded me of what I already knew: this wasnt my

house and these werent my things. Not only that, there was not one thing about the house

that was designed for a one-year-old. Of course, Tommy didnt notice and was happy to

drive his trucks on the weathered wooden trunk that served as a coffee table. It was an

admirably salvaged item, but my jaded eyes saw it only as a splinter maker.

As the morning progressed, I slowly put away our clothes and made lunch. The

Green Bay Packers had made it into the playoffs, which meant that Matt wanted to spend

the afternoon watching the game. Since professional football is the only sport he ever

devotes any time to, I did not begrudge him this desire, but a small heretical part of me

wished the Packs run had ended during the regular season. At least the nicely landscaped

backyard was pretty with a pergola, chairs, and a small table. I figured Tommy and I

could spend the afternoon out there.

But the moment Tommy woke from his nap he wanted to go into the front yard

and play in, of all places, the car. Never mind that we had just spent the better part of two

days confined to its small interior. It was if he sensed my ambivalence about Austin and

was prepared to leave at moments notice. Climbing from seat to seat, he gleefully

scattered change all over the floor and into various ducts. (For weeks afterward, when we

hit the brakes, we would be rewarded with the rattling descent of money in the front

console like a Pachinko machine.) Using his many newly acquired words that tumbled


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from his mouth every day as if he had swallowed a dictionary, he directed me to close

doors, roll down windows, and put him in his car seat. He insisted that we look at the

alphabet flash cards I kept in the car to enliven long trips at desperate moments. He sat in

the front and pretended to drive. He got so red-faced and sweaty that I periodically made

him go inside, but each time we did so, he would play with the limited selection of trucks

we had available for about fifteen minutes and then would be at the front door again in

his green and yellow Junior Cheesehead t-shirt, his fine hair sticking up wildly from

the humidity, pointing to the driveway and saying car in a firm tone that brooked no

dissent.

At one point as I sat on the cement driveway while Tommy played in the car the

next-door neighbor stepped onto his ramshackle porch for a smoke. He wore a baseball

cap and what looked to be about three days of stubble. I said hello and he replied

Howdy.

Hes a big boy now, he said, cocking his head toward Tommy who was seated

in the front seat happily pulling at the gearshift. Then he continued, I used to feel like a

big boy too. Now I feel small. I feel like a little child. He paused, staring off into the

distance. I said nothing. What could one possibly say in reply? Matt emerged and

introduced himself to Ed, explaining that he was here on a three-month fellowship at the

Ransom Center at the University of Texas. I missed the particulars of their conversation

because Tommy hopped out of the drivers seat and took off across Eds lawn toward the

street. After Matt went back inside, Ed looked at me speculatively and said, Three

months huh? I bet youll be back in Austin next year. Its a wonderful place.


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Looking at the streets low line of undistinguished houses, made even more flat

and squat in the dull afternoon light, I murmured something about Matts job keeping us

in Delaware and this being our first time in Texas. Ed looked surprised. Really, he said,

Well I know for sure yall wont want to leave. Im sure my tight little smile

demonstrated just how absurd I considered this idea, but Ed was unfazed, grinding his

cigarette out under his heel and waving to Tommy once more before going back into his

house.

Later, after the Packers won in overtime, after we had to abort an exploratory

drive when Matt accidentally backed out over the curb and ripped part of the front

bumper loose, after Tommy had fallen out of the front seat of the car and onto the

driveway giving himself an egg-shaped lump in the middle of his forehead, and after I

had served us all an indifferent dinner, Tommy came in for a good-night kiss, looked up

at me and said, Nighty-night Mommy for the first time ever. I watched him as he

padded down the unfamiliar hallway to his new bedroom. Maybe we all would like it

here. Maybe.

*********

I finally had three months in one place. My first order of business after unpacking

was to fixate on the fact that I didnt know a soul in the city. I dont know why this

bothered me so much, but maybe it was because I couldnt fixate on the fact that we

would soon be leaving.

The second thing I did was decide to ignore this fixation by focusing all my

energy on Tommy. It became obvious to me that our irregular travel schedule had

prevented me from dedicating enough time or thought to him and his developmental


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needs. When I started to re-read Penelope Leach, whose book I had been hauling around,

unopened, since the previous May, I became convinced of just how neglectful Id been.

Tommy, who had quite sensibly never read a book on child development, adapted

to Austin much as he had to everywhere else. For the first two weeks he drove us crazy

by waking up between 5 and 6 in the morning but he gave that up and then settled into a

nice routine of sleeping until 7. He found that an old stump in the backyard was ideal for

driving his trucks on. He started watchingElmos Worldevery morning, and when he

discovered that his diapers had pictures of Elmo on them (wearing a fire hat no less) he

started running into his room, strewing all of the diapers on the double bed we used as a

changing table, and rolling around in them while laughing maniacally. We bought a new

Thomas the Tank Engine DVD that he loved, especially because it had a music video for

a song called Down by the Docks. Tommy instantly adopted this as his anthem, singing

the chorus lustily at every opportunity. He had a powerful voice and I often wondered

what people at the grocery store thought to hear a toddler singing Down by the docks,

thats the place to be! fortissimo while I bagged oranges or chose cereal.

He certainly wasnt worried about whether or not he was playing with other kids,

whether or not I had friends, what we should be doing with our time, or if he was on track

for kindergarten. That was my job. I started planning out my weeks, picking pre- and

post-nap activities that were designed to stimulate and amuse. Here is a typical day, saved

on a sticky note for posterity: childrens museum, lunch, nap, blocks/books/kitchen

play/flashcards, outdoor play/water play, ball, hide-and-seek.

After hours in the craft store, a place completely foreign to me, I emerged with

bags of colored sand, polished rocks, and seashells that I carefully placed into empty milk


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jugs and plastic containers. Tommy humored me by playing with these for a few minutes

and then abandoning them in favor of his beloved stump and trucks.

We filled bowls with water and rocks and dumped them first from one to the other

and then all over the backyard. One website I consulted suggested letting him play with

containers full of water in a dry bathtub, an experiment designed to soak not only his

clothes but my own and the floor. He helped me make pizza dough and sweep up

afterwards; it took me an hour to finish cleaning up after he had goneyou guessed it

outside to play with his trucks. Lest I run out of ideas, I stuck my notes where I could see

them and when building a fort with sofa cushions grew pass, we put in a Fleetwood Mac

CD belonging to the houses owners and danced (This, he genuinely liked, especially if

the tune was Secondhand News).

Since we were in Austin for a few months and since Tommy was now a one-nap-

a-day kid, outings were much easier than they had been in other places. At many of our

other stops, I had looked regretfully at fliers for childrens concerts that were scheduled

for after our departure, library activities that required sign up and a regular commitment,

or playgroups that were scheduled outside our small between-nap window. After our first

week in Austin, we had a library card, a schedule of all the toddler story times in the city,

a listing of all the parks with playgrounds that were an easy drive from the house, copies

of Austins free parenting magazines, and calendar listings of family-oriented events.

All of my ambition meant that poor Tommy had to endure mornings when the

childrens museum was full of screaming second graders who all but trampled him as he

tried to get close to the model train (I soon learned that I should bring him there on

Monday mornings when the museum was open only to children under four). We gave up


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on storytime at the bookstore when he sang Down by the Docks while the other

children were singing If Youre Happy and You Know It, but did persist in going to the

ones at the library where Tommy was less likely to get distracted by displays of Thomas

merchandise or toy trucks.

We made many happy discoveries as well, mostly outdoors. One of them was

Shoal Creek. This stream ran right through the middle of Austin down to the Colorado

River and was surrounded by a greenbelt that was also a public park much of the way.

Since this stream was more rock than water except after a heavy rain, there were some

places where we could stand on a large stone in the middle and scoop up handfuls of

gravel to throw. And two other parks with excellent and well-maintained playsets were a

five-minute drive from our house.

In all of the places I took Tommy I encountered parents and children. The former

were almost always willing to chat. In fact, a typical conversation opener in Austin was

this: Have yall been here before? No? Well, welcome to Texas. Were glad to have

you. It was a living illustration of the Lyle Lovett song that played on a tape in the

Austin City Limits room at the childrens museum, whose chorus went, Thats right

youre not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway.

Despite this friendliness, I found it difficult to get beyond the simple playground

hellos and to the point of maybe exchanging phone numbers. So I would brood a little

more, plan another outing, and try to figure out how to really get to know all these nice

people in stylin shoes who drawled around me all the time and couldnt believe this was

my first time in Texas. Maybe, I thought, I should run a personal ad:


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Like walks in the park, throwing rocks, juice in a sippy cup? Im your gal. MWF,

mother of adorable toddler, looking for companionship, fun in the sun. No long-

term commitment; must be willing to adapt to nap schedule.

*********

My angst aside, our life in Austin quickly settled into a nice routine, with Matt

setting off for the bus stop every morning and me consulting my notes to see what

Tommy and I should be doing. We even started going to church after a seven-month

hiatus.

In Delaware, we belonged to a small Episcopal church where we were among the

regular attendees. It had one priest on staff and about 250 regular members, few of them

young families. There was much about Immanuel that was special to me: the simple

beauty of its Colonial Revival interior with its box pews and velvet seat cushions; the fact

that on Sunday mornings we knew almost everyone there; the choir, reputed to be one of

the best in the state; the homemade bread used for Communion. Tommy and I had both

been baptized there.

On the surface, Saint Davids in Austin could not have been more different. One

of the larger Episcopal churches in the country, it had a half dozen priests on staff and

offered numerous services, some of them simultaneous, as there was more than one

worship space. There were extensive childcare hours in a large and well-staffed nursery.

It had its own parking garage, bookstore, and restaurant (called Caf Divine). It was a

bewildering, bustling place, almost a small city unto itself with a large three-story

modern addition attached to the 1853 church building.


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But despite its size, there were things about Saint Davids that made us

immediately comfortable. Used though we were used to the small size, clear glass, and

plain white of Immanuels interior, we also liked Saint Davids historic sanctuary with its

twenty stained-glass windows, marble altar and walnut pews. Everyone we met was kind,

from the rector (who, improbably, hailed from Janesville and whose father had

announced all the high school basketball games when Matt was a student) to the college

kids who worked in the nursery. Like Immanuel, it was clearly a parish that valued music

and had an excellent organist and choir. And the rhythm of the Eucharist was the exact

mix of formality and friendliness that we preferred. We were amazed to see that the huge

sanctuary was almost full each Sunday, especially since there were three other services.

A quick survey of both the nursery and pews revealed a large number of young families

in attendance.

Saint Davids also offered a vast array of activities and classes; after each service

there was a choice of at least five different discussions or lectures to attend. Dinner was

served in the restaurant several nights a week. And there were any number of groups to

join, including one called the Friday Moms that met for a few hours on Friday mornings.

Free childcare was offered and apparently anyone was welcome.

You might expect that I would jump at the opportunity to join such a group. But I

initially came up with a million reasons not to attend. How would I explain that we were

only in Austin for three months? Would anyone be interested in being friends with

someone who was only their so briefly? The first Friday I planned to start going, it said

on the online schedule that everyone was to bring in projects from home to work on.

Even back in Delaware I wasnt much of one for projects like scrapbooks or knitting.


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Actually, this is an understatement: I never make anything that is not food related. And in

Texas, where I had few belongings and no house to decorate, I really had nothing that

could be called a project except perhaps for Tommy. What if I was the only one who

didnt have something to work on? Could I go projectless? Would I just seem like an

interloper? A loser? Both?

I knew I had to at least give it a try, but when tears started rolling down Tommys

cheeks as I pulled into the parking garage, I almost used this as an excuse to turn around

and go home. Apparently he remembered that Matt and I had left him in the nursery on

Sunday and although he had seemed quite happy when we picked him up, he was in no

mood to be left again. The sound of his shrieks accompanied me down the hallway as I

went off in search of the meeting. Because the building was so big the nursery passed out

beepers and I anticipated mine going off in short order.

I nervously sat myself at one of the big round tables, watching as other women

arrived with bags of yarn and photo albums. The priest in charge, whose given name was

Margaret but whom everyone called Tudy, introduced herself. For the first half hour or so

I was in agonies. A few women asked me who I was and when I explained they nodded

politely, their faces blank with incomprehension. There was much hugging and banter

that I couldnt participate in. My smile started to feel frozen and I almost wished the

beeper would sound.

But then Cissy and DAnne sat next to me. Cissy was the most beautifully dressed

pregnant woman Id ever seen, wearing a soft gray sweater and matching leggings made

out of what looked like cashmere and high-heeled clogs. DAnne had an open, friendly

face and a calm demeanor that I found reassuring. Both of them were native Texans, and


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Cissy came from Austin (I was later to discover that her sister also attended the group,

that they had both grown up attending Saint Davids, and that Cissy was on the vestry).

We chatted about our children. Cissy had a girl who was Tommys age and was

due in April, DAnne had a four-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. Then they both

wanted to know if I had stereotypes about Texas and if they had thus far proven to be

true. I could have kicked myself as I heard myself say that, yes I had some stereotypes

but that Austin didnt seem to live up to them. They both wanted to know what my

images of Texas were and I very carefully tried to rescue myself by saying something

jokey about cowboys and line dancing. They both nodded seriously. Youll find a lot of

rednecks in Texas, DAnne said thoughtfully, but not so much in Austin. Cissy told a

long and hilarious story about riding a helicopter and a horse to a debutante party on a

ranch. When she said that she thought this was simply a consequence of living in such a

big state with ranches that were so spread out, DAnne looked at her with amusement and

said, Ive never had to ride a helicopter in my life!

When I told DAnne and Cissy that I thought that people in Texas were friendlier

than out East, as they called it, they nodded in agreement.

People in the east just seem busier, DAnne said, Here things are slower and

people just take more time. I thought about my eager attempts to plan Tommys days

and my impatience to make friends and felt a little foolish.

I realized that I felt more relaxed than I had since we were in Italy. It was almost

insanely nice to sit around and just chat with other women. There were snacks on offer,

including breakfast tacos. These tortillas wrapped around eggs, bacon, and cheese were

as ubiquitous in Austin as donuts and muffins were in Delaware. I wasnt beeped and


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didnt worry about Tommy at all, hardly noticing when almost two hours had passed.

When I left, it was without phone numbers of plans to get together with anyone, but I was

already signed up for the groups message board. I knew Id be back.

*********

One of my initial objections to Austin was that it was ugly. Certainly this was true

of our street, which was a mix of small houses, some of them gussied up with various

shades of paint, but most of them with scruffy yards and chipping paint or dirty siding.

But as I got to know Austin, I discovered neighborhoods full of bungalows with

charming porches and wisteria vines.

I had also thought that the landscape was barren and flat, but I soon realized that

the city was in fact surrounded by hills. The vast sky was mirrored in Town Lake, a name

I loved with its implications of lazy Saturdays spent swimming with friends. This lake

is really just a widening of the Colorado caused by strategic damming. It bisects the city,

its water so clear that the bottom is visible. Ducks and kayaks alike leave soft trails on its

surface. And Austin is surprisingly green for a place that gets so hot (the average

temperature in July is 96 degrees), a fact that became increasingly evident as the weather

warmed up. As someone who swore she always loved winter, it surprised me how much I

enjoyed seeing iris and tulips in February.

I also started to understand the romance of Texas, stemming both from its history

and its sheer size. It was easyand not unpleasantto feel as though the rest of the

United States was far distant and not really important. Although the University of Texas

is one of the largest state universities in the country, driving around town it was unusual

to see out-of-state plates. And despite the suburban sprawl that encircled Austin, it was a


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Sunday in late January. It was an incredibly beautiful day, warm and sunny with a

brilliant sky. We parked near a large and crowded playground which was full of ramps,

slides, and an antique fire truck now outfitted as a jungle gym.

When Tommy tired of the playground, we walked about fifty feet to a dais

overlooking Barton Springs Swimming Pool, a football-sized spring-fed pool with a

constant temperature of 68 degrees that was open year round. Here, next to a large

concession stand selling soft serve ice cream and hot dogs and bread to feed the birds,

Tommy chased pigeons around the picnic tables and threw rocks into puddles. We

watched swimmers doing laps in the clear water; the air was like a blessing. On another

visit we would discover steps at one end of the pool that led down to a path that ran along

the rest of the lake. This rocky path offered a number of excellent vantage points from

which to hurl stones into the water, an activity preferred by so many young boys there

that I sometimes wondered that there were any rocks left to throw.

But the real reason for our visit that day was to ride on the Zilker Zephyr, a little

green diesel engine pulling a line of small, open-air cars that runs for three miles through

the park every day of the week. The depot was situated between the playground and the

pool, and we arrived in time to purchase tickets ($6.50 for all three of us) for the first run

of the day. As we waited for it to emerge from the tunnel next to the playground where it

spent the night, a happy hum of expectation filled the air. It was obvious that tourist and

native alike adored this train and that many families made special trips here to ride.

Tommy loved every minute of the 25-minute ride, from the regular whistle blasts

to the fact that he could see the joggers on the bike path that in many places paralleled the

track. Every time we passed a stroller or a dog he would cry baby! or doggie! We


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went under a bridge and admired its graceful stone curves. We watched ducks swimming

on the sparkling surface of the lake and looked at the large cranes that hung over the

cityscape in the distance.

My favorite part of the ride was that everyone who saw the train pass got a goofy

smile on their face, and many of them waved. It seemed there was not one person in

Austin who did not love that train, who did not have time to take a moment to say hello.

And at the end, after we passed through the playground with all of the children waving

and shouting we entered the tunnel that doubled as an engine shed and all of the adults

started making funny noises to hear the echo, ostensibly for the benefit of the children on

board but also just because it was fun.

*********

You might think that Austin, being an independent music capital and college

town, would be an uncomfortable place for families. Grit and dive bars and tattoo parlors

were certainly to be found. But they simply served to lend a pleasant edge, a hipness, to

everyday life. From what I could see, families were everywhere in Austin: along the

paths that lined Town Lake; in the narrow aisles at Waterloo Records; in the groovy

used-furniture stores full of naugahyde chairs that lined South Congress Avenue; and of

course at the grocery store. The one I frequented was called Central Market.

But then, Central Market wasnt just any grocery store. The produce section alone

was the size of most ordinary supermarkets, and everything from the mundane to the

exotic was completely appealing and fresh; this included huge, sweet strawberries that

were plentiful throughout our stay. The butcher counter stretched for what seemed like a

mile, ending in an equally large wine and beer section that in turn was next to a 600-


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hundred item bulk foods area where it was possible to sample from about thirty varieties

of coffee. The store didnt sell basic items like paper towels and diapers (or rather, it did,

but they were all made out of recycled fibers and there was no way I would purchase

anemic and pricey versions of these items) but it was easy to overlook these

impracticalities when one could scoop ten different kinds of salsa into containers to enjoy

with the fresh, hot tortillas one had just selected in the bakery aisle. And if you stood in

any one spot in for more than 30 seconds, contemplating say the prepackaged chicken

breasts, a smiling employee materialized at your side to ask if you needed assistance.

All of this bounty, much of it organic, wasnt even the stores real genius. On one

side of the warehouse-sized shopping area was a large caf that served a full menu of

excellent food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The main part of the caf opened up onto

a deck that was covered with tables and chairs and was right next to a large playset. And

every Friday and Saturday night, the caf offered free live music. When we decided to

check it out, we discovered that the clientele was largely made up of families with young

children. Parents encircled the playground equipment drinking from beers and glasses of

wine while their children tore around under the large oak trees. Why this was the only

place Id ever encountered that ever built a bar right next to a playground, I dont know,

but Matt and I, drinks in hand, both thought it was immensely civilized.

*********

Tommy was doing many funny and interesting things each day. One of his new

favorite books was theRichard Scarry Big Book of Words, a catalogue of things in the

world from airplanes to cereal to spider webs to balloons. Each morning, when one of us

went into get him, he spent a few minutes reciting a list of things around him and things


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couldnt fully participate, I enjoyed looking at everyone elses big hair and sequins and

their deb photos, a new phenomenon for me. One woman usually brought her son who

was only a couple of months old and I spent peaceful half hours holding him so that she

could have a break.

Conversations ranged widely; one week we might be talking about timeout

strategies to use with our children, the next about how to find balance in our lives. We

talked about our husbands and what we expected of them, we talked about books and

finding time to read. And we talked about church matters, from the ordination of

homosexuals to how we could all work to solve Saint Davids budget crisis for the fiscal

year.

During one of these Friday-morning respites I met Louisa, who had two boys,

Andrew, a year older than Tommy, and Owen, who was exactly Tommys age. Tommy

and Owen had already hit it off in the nursery and before I knew it Louisa and I were

trading phone calls and going out to lunch, the three boys tearing around the playset at

Central Market. Tommy absolutely adored Owen and talked about him nonstop (he called

Owen his special friend, pronouncing it pizza friend to our initial confusion). I felt

completely comfortable with Louisa, who grew up in Lubbock, had the kindest green

eyes Id ever seen, and who never seemed impatient with her boys, using endearments

with them like puddin that I just loved. Louisa was the first person other than Matt

with whom I could discuss the loneliness and frustration of life on the road. I could call

her when I was having an especially difficult day and she actually seemed to expect that

we would remain friends, even after I left the vicinity.


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And so it was that after months of the challenge of traveling with Tommy, I

realized that he was actually making my life in Austin easier than it would have been

otherwise. Without him, I wouldnt have been able to come to the moms group,

wouldnt have found an easy entre into the, albeit friendly, community at Saint Davids,

wouldnt have found such an easy or instantaneous way to connect with women who

were culturally distant from me.

I could even imagine raising Tommy to be a Texan, saying maam and sir

and maybe playing in the steel drum band like the boys who serenaded us, Mardi Gras

style, at Caf Divines Shrove Tuesday supper.

*********

The only real negative thing about Austin seemed to be the weather. When we

mentioned to people that we wouldnt mind living here, theyd tell us darkly youve

never been here in the summer. (Of course, one transplanted northerner we met pooh-

poohed this by saying, you dont have to shovel heat!) It was true that even in January

with the heat sometimes running it was so humid that we often had to put our towels in

the drier after a shower and use copious amounts of hairspray. And there was the three-

inch cockroach that climbed across my bare foot one morning in the kitchen. This turned

out to be what was known as a tree roach more commonly found outdoors than in. Not

that knowing bugs that large were waiting to drop on us from the trees was much

consolation.

Our life in Austin was definitely simple. Although I agreed to write an article

about the Moms group for the church newsletter, there was little chance either of us

would be asked to do much else at Saint Davids. Our landlords had hired someone to


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take care of the yard and there was no shopping for the house or fixing things up. Our

free time was ours to do with as we wishedand what we wished was to rent movies, go

to the park with Tommy, and experience Austins seemingly endless variety of queso

dishes.

Our favorite restaurant was the Shady Grove, which, true to his name, sat in a

grove of oak trees. It had a stone interior reminiscent of a 1950s ski lodge complete with

a fireplace and large plate glass windows. A large silver Airstream trailer was parked

next to the patio which extended off the side of the building (for what purpose Im not

sure). Here they served huge corndogs cooked in homemade batter that Tommy would

devour while Matt and I stuffed ourselves full of chicken fried steak covered with hatch

green chile sauce and Monterey Jack cheese or tortilla fried queso catfish. If you had told

me that I would one day swear up and down that deep-fried catfish covered in melted

cheese and chili peppers was just about the best amalgam of flavors God ever created, I

would have said you were crazy, but its very true.

With time on my hands (and Tommy on a regular sleeping schedule) I also

decided to try the joys of second-hand shopping. I started by checking out all of the

consignment shops that sold toys and childrens clothing, unearthing bargains on hats,

shoes, blocks, and a plastic shopping cart that he could push around the backyard. These

initial explorations led me to the Goodwill store around the corner from the house. Id

never been much of one for thrift-store shopping but for some reason when my jeans got

a tear in the knee, I decided to check this one out. I emerged an hour and a half later with

jeans, two other pairs of pants, a skirt, two blouses and a pair of adorable red shoes all

for 44 dollars. I was hooked, and soon got Matt in on the action. After months on the


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road, he was as eager as I was for some new clothes, and it seemed like every day on the

way home from the bus stop he went in there and found a new Brooks Brothers or

Banana Republic shirt at four dollars a pop.

I got a pair of black denim Capri pants and drove around wearing them my red

shoes, listening to Slaid Cleaves, Kelly Willis, Lyle Lovett, and Toni Price on the radio.

Matt took Tommy one afternoon a week and if I wasnt working, I was hanging out in

coffee shops by Town Lake or casing the many vintage clothing stores looking for a cute

purse for date nights. Our increasing network of people had provided us with a babysitter

(the advantage of being there for only three months was that people were willing to share

precious names) and we went out for several very nice dinners and saw Lucinda Williams

in concert at the Zona Rosa, one of Austins more famous music venues. We were so

contented with our life in Austin that although we talked about going to San Antonio for

a weekend, we never actually motivated to do it.

*********

Mostly the little house did feel more and like home, although I had moments

when I was reminded (and irritated) that it wasnt. We had several plumbing crises

including a clogged drain and a water heater that needed to be replaced, both of which

involved calls to the owners before a plumber could get in to fix them. During February

and March, the house was on the market and a continuous stream of people marched

through. This meant that every time I left the house, it had to be tidy, which was no small

feat given that Tommys favorite game might have been called Divide n Scatter. And

although most of the agents knew to call and schedule ahead of time so that they werent


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coming during Tommys nap, sometimes Id open the door right after he fell asleep to

find someone who just wanted a quick look.

The loudest reminder that we werent in our own space came one morning early

in March. I was holding Tommy in my arms when he leaned first against my shoulder

and then, swiftly, purposefully, over it. Before I had time to react or pull away, his

chubby toddler finger pressed the button on the keypad that activated the houses alarm

system, which meant we were prisoners inside the house until and unless we could punch

in the code. Now, satisfied, he looked at me, smiling, his blue eyes wide, his blonde hair

sticking out around his head like a halo.

I put Tommy down and squinted at the keypad. There were words scrolling and a

light blinking and I was pretty sure (although not certain) that they meant the house was

armed. A vague memory surfaced: the owner, to me only a voice on the phone, sharing a

secret code that shut off the system. But since Matt and I had not been setting the alarm

since we arrived in Austin, I had no idea what it was. Every time I came in the door my

hands were full of groceries, sippy cups, toys, the diaper bag, and Tommy; I was more

concerned that I wouldnt make it in time and that the alarm would go off than I was

about the theft of someone elses belongings.

Matt, who had come down the hall dressed to go to work at the library did not

know the code either. A hasty search for it produced the owners phone number at work,

but she was unavailable. Matt had missed his bus. We paced the narrow hallway, getting

in each others way, each too tired after seeing the wrong side of 5 a.m. to come up with

any kind of solution.


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To make matters worse, for some reason on this morning I was feeling cross, a

feeling that only intensified as the minutes passed. Its not end of the world! I declared,

Im just crabby! Moms get crabby sometimes! You should just go! And then, Ill deal

with the consequences, I said, unaware, of course, what those were. Matt knew better

but as I grew more strident, he wisely decided to let me face them alone, making the

calculation that he didnt need to be the person who taught me what I needed to know. He

was laughing to himself as he walked away from the house.

He had already disappeared around the corner when the alarm started: exquisitely

loud, piercing, cataclysmic. I heard the screen door in my bedroom slam against the wall

as Tommy fled to the backyard. Grabbing the phone, I followed and found him running

around the perimeter as if the noise was driving him into a trance or seizure. I had no idea

what to do or where to go for help. Except for Ed, who rarely made an appearance, I

didnt know the neighbors, and I was pretty sure that if I just drove away, trouble would

ensue.

The minutes passed slowly, the din did not abate, and no solution presented itself.

Then the security company called. Although I walked to the back of the yard, I could

hardly hear the woman on the other end of the line.

I told her the situation. She said, Well, whats the secret word?

I said, I dont know the secret word! I dont know anything!

She said shed make a few calls and then she was gone. The alarm stopped

sounding a few minutes later, but when I went back into the house, I could see on the

keypad that it was still armed. We stayed outside. About ten minutes later the alarm

started going off again; the noise was all the worse for the respite. Tommy resumed his


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paces, and two police officers, a man and a woman, appeared through the back door.

They looked at me standing helpless as I watched my son tearing around like a dog

sensing an earthquake. I could see that the woman was struggling not to laugh. The man

advised me to try and disconnect the alarm. Neither of them seemed to think that I was an

imminent threat. It was phenomenally loud inside. I think well leave around the side of

the house, the female officer said.

Just as they departed, the owner called. I started shouting a long and convoluted

explanation of what had happened before she broke into my wild speech, saying

Shouldnt I give you the code so you can turn the alarm off?

After so much excitement, it seemed like it should be naptime, but I realized that

it wasnt even noon; although I was exhausted, we still had several hours to fill. My usual

m.o. was to spend our mornings at the park; this seemed an especially good idea this

sunny day in the event that any of the neighbors decided to come by and find out just

what kind of fools had rented the place. We drove to a nearby playground and Tommy

decided that this was the day he would learn to go down the tube slide. Perhaps the

trauma of the alarm jarred him into it, but he was able to scoot up a ladder that had

previously flummoxed him. He did this nonchalantly, no look-at-me flourishes, and as I

had many times in the previous months I marveled at his ability to calmly accept my

ineptitude (although, to be fair, in this instance he was at least partly to blame).

I couldnt face having to go home and make lunch and then wash the dishes

there was no dishwasher in our rentalso I decided to sample the Taco Shack, a local

joint whose name piqued my curiosity. I was going to order Tommy something healthy

like a veggie taco. But as was often the case during our time in Austin, this was not to be.


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We ate chips and queso in the sun with a general feeling of well being about the universe.

While I watched Tommy drip orange cheese-like food all over his shirt, I did what had

become a common internal checkdid I want to go home to Delaware where I would be

untroubled by these kind of minor catastrophes? The answer, to my surprise, was no.

*********

We chose a regular pew at church and greeted the people who sat around us. After

services, I sold baked goods to raise money with the other members of the moms group.

Matt and I traded babysitting with DAnne and her husband William. I met some of

Louisas neighborhood friends and their children and was invited to a surprise maternity-

clothes shower for Louisa, who was expecting her third child in August. I went on

playdates to the zoo and the rodeo. I initially had many romantic images of what the latter

might entail, but it turned out to be basically a large country fair complete with a petting

zoo that Tommy wanted nothing to do with, tractors he wanted to bring home, and a

midway where he was thrilled to ride the merry-go-round with Owen. The only

atmospheric thing about the entire experience was that the security guard at the front gate

was visibly armed.

Tommy and I still had lots of days alone, but I stopped going to the childrens

museum or following a careful rotation of the playgrounds. I didnt make lists of what we

would do. I knew my way around well enough simply to let our days happen. After all

those peripatetic months, and my worries about being able to parent under ordinary

circumstances, it was a relief to realize that, yes, we could settle down somewhere.

Typical days made me happy. On one such day Tommy devoured a fabulous

amount of yogurt for breakfast then ran back to play with his trucks on the bookshelf in


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to peer out. I told him to watch for Matt, and when he finally spied him, he did a little

dance and started shrieking Daddy home! Daddy home! He was covered in paint and

had a filthy white onesie on. It felt like real life. Our life.

*********

With Tommy growing more participatory and verbal every day, I decided that this

was a good time to institute a policy of saying a simple grace before meals, not a formal

prayer, but simply a listing of all the things we had to feel grateful for. Tommy took to

this with gusto and sometimes we had to join hands as many as three or four times during

the course of one meal to say Amen as he called it.

One morning as he and Matt sat at the breakfast table, enjoying their cereal,

Tommy held out his hand for an impromptu grace. Matt said, We are thankful for

another beautiful day in Austin, Texas. Tommy smiled and said Austin, Texas, then

paused for a moment and added thoughtfully, home.

*********

On our last Saturday in Austin we went over for one final stroll through the

Goodwill. I had pretty much tapped the place and couldnt find anything my size, but

Matt got yet another shirt and Tommy got a bunch of great board books for our car ride to

Los Angeles. When we got to the front, Matt accidentally cut in front of a woman who

was standing there waiting. When he apologized, she joked with him and then leaned

over to talk to Tommy who was sitting in his stroller clutching a Thomas the Tank

Engine board book. She asked him if he had an engineers hat and we told her no. After

we left, we were walking down the sidewalk and she came calling after us, waving

something. She had found an abandoned Thomas engineer cap in her cart at the


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supermarket and had kept in her car for just such a moment. Smiling with satisfaction,

she handed it to me, saying its my gift to you.

Later we met Louisa and her family for our first foray into Texas barbeque, at a

place called Rudys. Louisa had warned me that it was fronted by a gas station, albeit a

clean one. But the back stretched out in a wide green lawn and Louisa had three big balls

for the boys, who romped and ran and tumbled about with all of the other kids there. The

restaurant portion of the building was built to look like a barn and its walls were

decorated with signs like Your mother doesnt work here, clean up your table and

Worst barbeque in Texas and Dont tell us its goodjust come again.

It was a warm, sunny evening, more like what I was used to in June than March.

We chatted and drank beer and ate brisket and white bread, and it was as if wed lived

there our entire lives. Tommy kept coming over to where Louisa and I were sitting and

cuddling up against her for a moment. Matt ate a Texas-sized portion of barbeque. Owen,

who had forgone eating in favor of play, basically had to come back and beg for scraps

from my husbands plate.

On the way home, Matt talked about how it made him feel to see Tommy playing

with Andrew and Owen, If we lived here, theyd be best friends. He was right of

course, but there was nothing for it. Our real life was somewhere else, and that was that.

I had never thought of our travels as perilous. Certainly, I never expected a broken

heart. Our life in Austin felt so comfortable, so right, that it was easy to claim it as our

own. I had enjoyed being in Vermont and Italy, had liked some aspects of city life in

Boston and London but in none of those places did I feel like anything but a tourist. Here,


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the mother of all trips, chapter 7: texas wants you anyway

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