Editor’s Note: This is the eighth entry in a new Dispatch series titled “Where I’m From.” Every Saturday, a writer shares a meditation on his or her hometown—a bustling metropolis, distant desert outpost, quiet suburb, or somewhere in between—and what makes it unique. The goal? Highlight voices—and good writing—from every corner of these United States.
I was kneeling at church, tracing the darkened grooves on the pew in front of me with my pinky finger. Above me, light poured through the stained glass and broke across the room in blues, greens, reds, and yellows. A sea of tanned faces filled the pews, heads bleached pale with chlorine, sun-worn from another Texas summer. At the front, the mosaic of Jesus gazed up triumphantly: long brown hair, white robe, beard. The Mass continued. My mind drifted off into a daydream about the cute boy that I had been crushing on. Was he singing the hymns? Where did he go on vacation? If I passed him in the communion line, should I try to make eye contact and smile? Before I knew it, the priest was walking down the aisle and my mother was shoving the weekly bulletin in my hand, so she could pull down the kneeler and pray.
Fifteen years later, I look at my mother in the same place praying. The only notable difference is a few more gray hairs on her head. It’s strange, the way memory works in a place like Dallas. Warm more days than not, my childhood there existed almost entirely in sunlight, afternoons spent racing home to change into shorts and a T-shirt, then back outside, chasing the last hours of daylight until the horizon swallowed the sun. At this time I lived on the outskirts of the city, in a place called Garland, Texas, past the Rose Hill Road exit. The long country road back to our house was extremely bumpy, and looking out of the windows you could see the horses grazing for about a mile. Sometimes the ranchers would walk the horses in our alleyway neighborhood, which was fine until you realized their—droppings—would leave quite a bit of a mess. Charming, maybe, but smelly? Yes.
