It was almost like I had been there before.
Like I had one of my deja vu dreams right there on that front porch.
Right there in front of the faded yellow paint of the farmhouse.
Right there next to the neighbor’s aged bull, with his horns broken and coming loose.
Right there, down at the end of a dead-end road, over a small bridge with no running water.
Right there next to the painted horses, the Temple water tower, the roads under construction, the trains that constantly passed, the wild sunflowers that grew by the sides of the road, the cowboy boots as lawn decorations.
Texas, felt to me, like it had long ago. In that dream I once dreamt.
How the heat would creep up and attack you, hardening the ground and cracking it into pieces. Piercing the grass and making it prickly under your feet.
How the sunsets took over the whole sky. Dying the clouds pink and illuminating the fading light into watercolor shades. How the sunsets would linger, holding on to every ray of light for as long as God would let it.
Texas, they say was God’s country. Prayers before meals were mandatory. Churches on Sundays were always full. Flea markets in every county, antique stores on every street corner. Front porches always decorated and fit to the finest.
Texas was the state in the shape of a star. The Lone Star state. Wherever you saw an American flag, there was a Texas flag flying right beside it. Always. If you thought Texas was big, think even bigger than that. When the roads would reach a knoll and you could look out over the land, it was almost like the horizon never stopped. Texas went on and rolled into the sun.
In Texas, sunflowers would grow wild. There would be fields of wild sunflowers every now and then. They would be popping up in cracks along the highway, piercing through pieces of concrete, rising through the dry ground always making their way to the sun. Following the sun’s track all throughout the day. Never leaving it hanging.
Texas simply smelled like the sun. Always basking in the haze and mixing it into the heat of the day. Like my dream predicted, Texas was full of light. Relentlessly shining down on that lonely wooden swing, out in the middle of a hay field, always welcoming you back home. Always offering you shade from the sun or cover from that storm that always seemed to pass when you were least expecting it. Cooling you off from the fire that always remained lit.
The heat of Texas was also its heart. Beating on and on. . .