Southern Tier

Today I woke up in the Comfort Inn in Bastrop, Texas. The last two days were spent in Austin. I flew there on Friday from New York Laguardia after spending a week sitting shiva for my Grandma Rose. She died on Friday, May 13th, after struggling against asthma for several decades. She was 86 when she died but she would've been 87 in July.

So, for those of you unfamiliar, sitting shiva means that a Jewish family mourns the deceased by sitting at home and welcoming into their home guests, relatives, and others who want to pay their respects. There is food, lots of sweets (to remember the sweet times), and there is a service in the evening every night for six or seven days. So, imagine all of us sitting together and all of the sadness and the tension and the unresolved issues. Everyone seems to evaluate the degree of everyone else's mourning. But yet, I think the week was good in many respects. First of all, it is so busy that one kind of forgets that the deceased is deceased, will not return, isn't just sitting in her house an hour away in the Bronx doing what she always did. So we kind of forgot that, or I did. Also, by sitting with one's relatives for a week, you spend a lot of time looking through photos and talking about a lifetime's worth of events. That is sad and makes you think that, overall, life really is sad. But despite all of this, when people came over to visit, we all were talking energetically, smilingly, and everyone created a mood like a party in the house, and the person who would've enjoyed that party the most was my Grandma. But I feel a stronger sense of family now and it is meloncholy that it takes someone dying to do this.

So, I am writing this from La Grange, Texas. E cycled this morning from Bastrop to here, where we had lunch outside of the public library, where I intended to do some work (but it was closed, it being Monday). This town of La Grange is just the cutest thing. I always thought I hated Texas, until I spent a few weeks here last summer, when E and I concluded the first part of the Southern Tier. He rode his bike, I drove support in the '89 Audi and wrote my dissertation as I hopped from one small-town public library to the next. My favorite was Clifton, Arizona. And I always thought I hated Arizona too. Anyway, La Grange has 4000 residents. It really looks very southern; it is very humid, very buggy, very full of small homes with well manicured lawns and old people tending to them. I am sitting in a cafe across from the main square. Between Bastrop and here I crossed over the Colorado River and in the median of the highway were lots of weeds with flowers the color of saffron. Everything was green and yellow all around. I wanted to get the camera out and take some pictures out the sunroof like I did last year, but the camera was too far away. I'll have to plan better tomorrow. At the hotel this morning walking across the parking lot was a man holding something cupped between his hands. He gestured to me with his eyes and his head a little, and I thought he was trying to sell me something. But then as he passed me he kind of smiled, or slightly softened his mouth, and said "wounded bird." Then I felt sort of silly that I thought he was trying to sell me something and hoped he interpretted my head-shake as dismay at the hurt bird and not the "no" to whatever I thought he was selling that my head movement really began as.

Tonight we sleep in a B&B called the Mariposa Ranch just beyond Gay Hill, Texas. I intend to finish a conference abstract this week, to work on an article, and to continue worrying about the academic job market and me.

Austin was fun. E's friends were/are fun. But dang, is it hot down here. I tend to get insufferably cranky in such weather, but I am going to do my best to be a good sport.

Here are some photos of the Mariposa Ranch.


View of the Mariposa Ranch grounds


Me across from the Ranch Hand's Bunkhouse


View from the Mariposa Ranch, out over the eastern Texas terrain