In early June, I landed in hot, muggy Texas on my way to the “Land Full of Stories” conference in San Marcos. Immediately after disembarking, I know I am in a new place—the airport festooned with neon cowboy hats, boots, lassos, horses, and barbed wire.
The conference was a celebration of the newly released anthology What Wildness is This, edited by Paula Yost, Susan Albert, Susan Hanson, and Jan Epton Seale, published by the University of Texas Press. Over one hundred authors contributed poetry, personal essays, narrative nonfiction and memoirs about land and place, how it profoundly affects our identity and contributes to our soul’s transformation. During the conference, speakers, poets, and readers enthralled us with their experiences of place, landscapes that had weaved deep meaning in the writer’s lives. Through the various workshops, were inspired to consider the special places that have meaning in our lives, the spiritual and healing places, landscapes that we associate with home, and landscapes that have challenged us or taught us something significant.
One workshop took writers into Gruene and the hill country around San Marcos. Gruene is a historic town between San Marcos and New Braunfels, Texas. The Guadelupe River rushes past the Old Mill restaurant. Sitting at a table over looking the river and sniffing the Texas landscape, I ordered catfish, deep fried Texas style, despite the diet I was on, and I enjoyed every bite. The week before the conference, the Guadelupe had flooded, knocking out the bridge in Gruene, reminding me how much, in big ways and small ones, our lives are affected by the particularities of place—weather, animals and plant life.
A two hour walk with my roommate Linda Wisniewski allowed us to experience the town on a hot Texas night. We explored various neighborhoods and found ourselves lost, crossing several bridges over the San Marcos River several times, directionless in the Great Plains, until we saw the campus and found ourselves. The night was laced with mournful train whistles echoing across the open plains. We encountered native trees, grasses, and flowers, and night animals swimming the river, surrounded by the scent of Texas hill country on a summer night.
This June night is etched in my memory because I experienced it with all my senses. Every time I come to Texas, I taste the Oklahoma grit in my mouth from the past, reminding me where home is.
--Linda Joy Myers
http://www.memoriesandmemoirs.com/
I remember that night in Gruene, too, Linda--artificial as that little town might be, it is filled with pieces of the Texas past. I enjoyed being with you there, and that great deep-fried catfish!--Susan
Posted by: Susan Albert | July 19, 2007 at 08:49 AM