Editor’s Note: This is the eighth entry in a new Dispatch series titled “Where I’m From.” Every Saturday, a writer shares a meditation on his or her hometown—a bustling metropolis, distant desert outpost, quiet suburb, or somewhere in between—and what makes it unique. The goal? Highlight voices—and good writing—from every corner of these United States.
I was kneeling at church, tracing the darkened grooves on the pew in front of me with my pinky finger. Above me, light poured through the stained glass and broke across the room in blues, greens, reds, and yellows. A sea of tanned faces filled the pews, heads bleached pale with chlorine, sun-worn from another Texas summer. At the front, the mosaic of Jesus gazed up triumphantly: long brown hair, white robe, beard. The Mass continued. My mind drifted off into a daydream about the cute boy that I had been crushing on. Was he singing the hymns? Where did he go on vacation? If I passed him in the communion line, should I try to make eye contact and smile? Before I knew it, the priest was walking down the aisle and my mother was shoving the weekly bulletin in my hand, so she could pull down the kneeler and pray.
Fifteen years later, I look at my mother in the same place praying. The only notable difference is a few more gray hairs on her head. It’s strange, the way memory works in a place like Dallas. Warm more days than not, my childhood there existed almost entirely in sunlight, afternoons spent racing home to change into shorts and a T-shirt, then back outside, chasing the last hours of daylight until the horizon swallowed the sun. At this time I lived on the outskirts of the city, in a place called Garland, Texas, past the Rose Hill Road exit. The long country road back to our house was extremely bumpy, and looking out of the windows you could see the horses grazing for about a mile. Sometimes the ranchers would walk the horses in our alleyway neighborhood, which was fine until you realized their—droppings—would leave quite a bit of a mess. Charming, maybe, but smelly? Yes.
We had two dogs around this time, Cookie and Coco. My older sister bought Cookie, a small poodle/schnauzer mix, after an attempted robbery. I was alone when a stranger kicked open the back door. I ran out of the house, wireless home phone in hand, and called 911. My mom didn’t let me stay home alone after that, and my sister’s solution, unbeknownst to everyone else, was to buy me a guard dog. That guard dog was about 20 pounds soaking wet, 7 years old, and not qualified for the job. I loved her immediately. We eventually got another dog, a puppy this time, named Coco. I’d take them both to a pond nearby, Cookie dangling from a backpack, Coco straining at the leash, and I’d let Coco bound through the big bluestem grass while the power lines stretched toward the sunset. There were trees surrounding us on either side, and we were in our own little enclave that felt like a hidden world. Sometimes Coco would jump into the pond and no matter how furiously I tried to dry her off, my mother always somehow knew that I’d let her off leash. I could walk forever out there. But I usually settled for a stroll to the Sonic that was down the road.
I was introduced to another side of Dallas in sixth grade. I switched schools and my new friends’ parents were in higher tax brackets. I felt out of place walking the hallways, in a used uniform from the school’s summer resale, my skirt longer than those of the other girls, who got them hemmed. I stepped foot into my first mansion during a friend’s sleepover. The wealth in Dallas gets attributed to oil, but most of the money I saw up close came from construction managers, architecture firm directors, and law partners. These families’ culture, if the Dallas social scene can be said to have one, ran on spray tans (always visible at the hands), bright white teeth as dazzling as Jesus’ robe in the transfiguration story, and cowboy boots. A sports jacket when the evening required it. The neighborhoods kept their mansions discreetly hidden behind dense hedges and old trees, so that you only got glimpses of the scales of the estates as you drove by.
Although Texas is famous for its bluebonnets, in these neighborhoods magnolias and lavender laid about lazily in the spring air as you walked along the streets. At night, the air stood still, with the occasional whisper of a breeze. There’s nothing particularly special about the geology of Dallas, but when you look up, you get the sense that you could fall off the face of the earth. It’s true that stars are brighter in Texas, and the endless veil above glitters, connecting you with the cowboys and frontiersmen who conquered this land, gazing off into the unknown just as this place once was.
It’s March and a red ball drops by my feet. I look up and see a little boy, maybe about 2 years old, straining his head between the balcony grates. “Mi pelota!” Spanish weaves through English in Texas. I throw the ball back but immediately the wind carries it the other direction. Winters in the South aren’t very cold, but each year a freeze blasts through in late January or early February, giving people enough of a season to be happy to say good-bye to the cold weather. When the winds pick up, it signals that spring has truly arrived. The sky gets dark and gray because of major storms, often contrasted in the distance over stark green grass. There’s not much to do when there’s bad weather. If you’re unlucky and the power goes out, a book or a difficult puzzle can help.
At one point my family moved from our house on the outskirts of the suburbs to a small apartment downtown, where I was introduced to the city’s bar scene. I would walk Coco on the Katy Trail, an urban greenbelt, passing hangout spots and beer gardens that were always packed. This is what most people are familiar with when they think of Dallas. Bar-b-cue, urban sprawl, and lots of people. I people-watched from a nearby park and daydreamed about my future—would I be drinking with my friends on a Tuesday night watching the sun set? At that point I thought I was staying in Dallas, but COVID and a million small choices brought me to Washington, D.C. Now I go back fairly often because my family still lives there. Some things have changed—new buildings, more people—but you can find pockets of heaven that give Texas its unique flavor.
I think that’s what a lot of outsiders don’t know about Dallas. That, throughout the city, hidden small parks and nature reserves lend themselves to some seclusion. If you fly into the city during the day, you’ll see miles of green as you land. When I visited Ireland, I couldn’t help but notice similarities between the two views. And that’s what greets me each time I come home. After living in a cosmopolitan city like D.C., it’s nice to come back and be greeted by little worlds that not many people know about.
