Culture Shock

        

          I’ve lived in Texas less than ten months and already when I go back to California I experience culture shock.

          A week ago I made a trip to the Golden State.  This time I had a direct flight from San Antonio to LA, via Southwest. Three hours. Standing in line at Hertz I chatted with a male flight attendant from Qantas who was on a twenty-four-hour layover. He was headed to Venice beach. By the time we got to the front of the line, a twenty minute wait, the guys in back of us said, “You two can go.”  They thought we were a couple!  I said, “Oh, we’re not together, he was just willing to listen to me!”

          The Nissan I got stunck of cigarette smoke but I couldn’t face going back inside. I drove to my mom’s house, via Lincoln, stopping at Albertson’s to pick up provisions.  The drive from our house in Texas to the San Antonio Airport is sixty-five miles and takes a little over an hour. The drive from LAX to my mom’s is nine miles and also took an hour.

          My four days were a whirlwind which I will not go into. Suffice it to say that nothing on my list got accomplished. However, because my mother kept saying, “If you’d just let me trim your hair . . . you have such a lovely neck . . .”  I surrendered, went to Supercuts and got a haircut.  At least I did one thing that made my mother happy.

          I promised I would not bitch in this blog but I must mention that the first night I laid awake until 2:30 a.m. listening to a frog.  At first he kept repeating, “Anthony! Anthony! Anthony!”  and later, “He has to take a crap, he has to take a crap.”   I woke up at 4:30, which is 6:30 “my time”.

          The entire trip I was sleep-deprived but at least the hottest it got was in the mid eighties, not 100, as it’s been here. This is the worst heat and drought south Texas has seen in decades.  Good citizens that we are our lawn is completely brown. Soon all lawns will be brown as water restrictions become tighter.

          But getting back to what makes Texas different.  Here’s one thing:

when you ask most people where they’re from, they’ll tell you the city. If you ask a Texan where they’re from, they’ll say Texas.

          In California the distinctions between geographic locations is so distinct.  The North feels superior to the South.  The coast feels superior to the Inland Empire. I remember my own father being proud to say, “I never go east of Sepulveda!”

          This is not the case in Texas.  If you’re from Brownsville or Houston,  Dallas or Austin, you’re treated as an equal. Likewise I notice that blacks, Latinos, Asians or Middle Easterners are Texans, first and foremost.  There is more racial tolerance.

          Likewise, even though Texas is a very Christian state, people here are accepting of varying religions.  The largest Hindu temple in the US is just outside of Austin.

          And then there’s the pace.  True, in the big cities people seem to be in more of a hurry, but most of the state is rural or small-town.  More often than not I get behind a driver going under the speed limit, not over.

          In L.A. I knew I couldn’t handle the

Pacific Coast Highway

at rush hour, so I met my friend Debby, who I’ve known since kindergarten, at her apartment in the Palisades, and she chauffeured me and our friend Geri up to Malibu for a four-hour yak fest with Heidi and Mary Ann.  I had a great time breathing in the fresh sea air and reminiscing with friends.

          John picked me up at the airport on Sunday. I thought we’d stop in S.A. for dinner, but instead we decided to return to Kerrville and have dinner at Billy Gene’s, our favorite restaurant.  Just looking out over the Guadalupe River to the hills beyond settled my heart.

          And then it was home for a reunion with the animals who all forgave me for abandoning them. John was a good daddy, taking Walter to the park, or throwing sticks for him, and caring for the cats.

          Before I knew it I had two writing assignments: on Tuesday I interviewed an ex-pro golfer and on Wednesday the new President of the Chamber of Commerce.  Since then I’ve typed up first drafts and emailed them for corrections.

          Plus, and this makes me really happy, I’m lining up teaching gigs for fall.  Mondays I’ll be offering a class through Adult Ed on memoir writing; Tuesdays I’ll be teaching in an after school program at Art2Heart; Thursdays my poetry class will resume (at my house) and Friday I hope to be teaching at a small private academy.

          Little by little I’m making connections. Slowly but surely I’m settling in.  Six more weeks I’ll be working with children. 

          Hooray, hallelujah, it’s so good to be home.