Prelude to a Dream Part 2 -- Nashville to DFW

 I'm no angel, but yes, as referenced earlier, I decided to Look Homeward. Yes, dear lord, I moved back to Texas in June, 2010, the beginning of one of the hottest summers on record. Now, what most people don't know about Texas if they've never lived there is this: Summer starts in April. You can begin planting your flowers and garden vegetables in February. No one in his right mind relocates to Texas between April and November. The key words in that last sentence are “right” and “mind”.

My mama and I often discussed this phenomenon of seasons (or lack thereof) in Dallas: there is hot, and there is wet. That would be about it. Mama would always claim three: hot, wet and frozen but it was my contention that frozen was a subset of wet and didn't count. After many such discussions, I came to realize that wet and frozen were in fact two different things and that “subset” was the type of sass that would cause an asswhipping 90% of the time.

Yep. Hot, wet and frozen, that's the ticket.

So, yes, fled Nashville. I'd already lived through a flood of Noah-like proportions, my apartment being located in the part of town hardest hit by the all-surrounding waters from the overflowing Cumberland and Harpeth Rivers. The thought of the warmth of Texas filled me with weird joy, as my faulty memory assured me that the heat was “less humid” than what I had in Nashville. Well, less humid it may be, but not by much and the overall high temps are murder – absolute murder. Every time I leave the house in which I live, I have to fight an asthma attack. And well, I'm not exactly in Dallas; I'm in what is referred to as the “mid cities” – that arid wasteland between Dallas and Fort Worth that contains DFW Airport, old Texas Stadium, the NEW Cowboy football shrine and not a helluva lot more. As someone whose favorite regional joke as always been “What does Ft. Worth have that Dallas never will?” “A major city 35 miles away.” – I am perhaps not in a place meant to feel like home.

Then August hits. Oh, god, August. So hot, always so hot, worst month of the year August. There is a line from a short story I've always loved that says that August in Texas often lasts all the way to November 1^st. God help me, it's true in the Horrible Summer of Two Thousand Ten. I'm unhappy, I can't get it together to find a job, I'm drinking more and more – 1.5 liter bottles of vodka by the case – and I wake up one morning in Late September, start to pack my things back in the various boxes and bags. If I'm going to drink myself into oblivion and die underneath a goddamned overpass while living in a box, I'm going to do it in a place I bloody well want to live.

I contact my friends in Nashville for visiting/crash space as I come through on my way back Home. I am graciously received by myy beloved C. and her husband, who allow me to hang out and bug them and reconnect for several days. It's brilliant; I have a purpose again. I am feeling better than I ever have, the further and further I get from the putative place of my birth. I now realize that “home” isn't where you're born any more than being a parent is giving birth; Home is where you want to be, and I'm headed there at a rapid clip. Oakland County, I've been gone too damn long and I'm Coming Home.