Thoughtworm Number 10
1. First contact
My first impressions of this place came during my two-hour drive from the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport to the city of Wichita Falls, where I had an appointment to meet with my probable new employers. I had gotten directions from the Internet, and they led me on what began as a sketchy route through some tiny North Texas burgs that obviously registered as the most minuscule dots on a map. Horrified at the middle-of-nowhere-type features of these towns, I tried to start thinking more positively as I eventually navigated the rental car onto a 4-lane highway that at least appeared to be heading “somewhere.”
As I drove, I looked around and wondered aloud, “Where the hell are all the trees?” The entire landscape appeared to have been flattened, beaten down, or stunted from further growth. The trees that I did see were short scraggly gnarled dark clumps, scattered here and there. I felt like I’d landed on another planet; I could not believe that people lived out here. And I kept driving and driving, and nothing seemed to change. The road kept going, but it wasn’t getting anywhere. I began to doubt that a populated area would, in fact, appear along this stretch of desolation.
2. The city
Eventually, as the directions had promised (although I’d been eyeing them with increasing doubt as I appeared, on paper at least, to be getting closer to my destination), signs of modern 21st century America began to appear again. I stopped at a truck stop just outside of town, bought some orange juice, and contemplated my fate. I was to go directly to my hotel, “settle in” as they say, and call the guy who would eventually become my boss. Then we were going to check out the library.
I drove into the city proper, and promptly drove right through it and out of it without realizing what had happened. I saw what I thought was my hotel, as I was pulling back onto the freeway, heading on towards what would’ve shortly become Oklahoma, had I kept going. I pulled off the highway, turned around and tried again. Failed attempt number two. Once again I turned around and, this time, found the well-hidden unmarked entrance to the Econolodge that would be my home for the next three days.
The main reason for my difficulty in physically getting to the hotel can easily be chalked up to the ridiculous road infrastructure in this town. For some reason unbeknownst to probably 99.3% of the population of Wichita Falls, the city planners decided that what the city really needed was a set of crisscrossing bypasses that would enable commuters to avoid that brutal imaginary traffic on the city streets. Of course, before they even built these ridiculous roadways, nobody could possibly have had a commute of more than 10-15 minutes. Staying on city streets, I was able to drive easily from one outer edge of town to the opposite edge in less than 20 minutes. As a result of this crazy system of elevated roadways with speed limits of 60 mph, though, I can get from my house to the library by car in 8 minutes flat. But it also meant that I was destined to get repeatedly lost while trying to get around town on my initial visit here last July.
As I looked around the city during my visit, I didn’t think it was quite as ugly as the surrounding countryside I had driven through on the way in, but that didn’t mean I was enthralled with the place. To begin with, the entire downtown section appeared to be virtually abandoned. This is where the library is located, and apparently its placement there was part of a hopeful initiative by the city to stimulate interest and growth downtown. Well, it hasn’t worked yet. The area is still full of vacant buildings and hardly any functioning businesses. The south side of the city, where our house is located, is where all the new commercial growth has occurred. It’s a pretty typical American strip-mall, chain store wasteland. The sort of thing you’d see in most small towns and cities across the country. Not a pretty sight, by any stretch of the imagination.
I should say here that I have previously lived exclusively on the east coast, most of those years having been spent living close to the Appalachian Mountains in one state or another. I’ve lived in a mid-sized city, in and on the outskirts of a small college town, and grew up in a small lakeside community. All of these places had their merits, both in natural beauty and in worthy businesses that I was more than happy to spend my money at (independent theatres, vegetarian restaurants, local natural food stores, etc.). Wichita Falls, on my first cursory and later more in-depth glances, has none of these things to offer. Well, Ok, there is a natural food store, but trust me, it’s literally the worst one I’ve ever been in. This is a university town, yet it has none of the amenities that usually come with such a distinction. It’s simply a town that happens to also have a university in it. In short, it doesn’t have a lot going for it.
3. My attitude
Ok, I’ll admit at this point to having a bad attitude about a lot of things. I’m more likely to have a negative reaction than a positive one, in a lot of situations. And as much as I’d like to believe the opposite, I can be deeply affected by my physical environment. I have previously gone through the experience of trying to move away from my problems by physically moving to another place. I’ve learned the lesson that this is not a viable solution for me. However, my surroundings still affect my mood from time to time, and especially when they are new, or have changed drastically in some way.
Something was preventing me from being happy when we first moved here. I later realized that it was me who was preventing myself from being happy, but, at the time, I was quick to look around and tell myself that this place was bringing me down. I was at odds with my surroundings, but was unwilling to even attempt to find a bright side. I closed myself up and removed myself from everyday life. I was a shell, a husk that neither absorbed nor contributed anything.
Meanwhile, Malinda was there the whole time, saying it’s not that bad. She was grounded; she accepted that this was not our ideal of a place to live, but she was determined to make the best of it. Things would’ve been much better if we both had had that attitude. But, unfortunately, as usual she had to be the cheerleader, while I was the player continually in a slump. A routine that we’ve both become weary of.
4. Quiet beauty
I finally made somewhat of a breakthrough one day as I was driving home from work. And I should say here that the one single thing that struck me when I came down here to visit in July was how big the sky was. I remember commenting to Malinda on the phone about how the clouds looked. Anyway, as I drove home, the sun was setting and the sky was this incredible shade of purple, the clouds were scattered shreds of purplish white, edged with bright golden tinting from the sun behind and below them. I was literally in awe as I drove towards this scene in the sky, and I felt kind of humbled. I mean, here I had been looking around so critically at this place, determined to see the ugliness in it. And it’s easy to find ugliness if your mood is black all the time. But I didn’t even bother looking in places that I had previously taken for granted.
Our friend Ashley used the phrase “quiet beauty” when describing Texas (she lived outside of Ft. Worth during part of her childhood). For some reason, this phrase stuck in my head and I carried it around until I finally grasped the complete significance of it. A couple of conversations helped me to do this. One was with a coworker as we drove to Ft. Worth for a workshop. A couple of times during the trip she had tried to engage me in a discussion about the natural beauty, or lack thereof, in this area of Texas. I didn’t really want to talk about it. Nobody was going to convince me that there was anything beautiful about this area. As we drove home, and the sun was setting, she tried again. “Look, see how the sun is hitting those grasses right now?” At the time, it seemed kind of pathetic to me. Like she was trying too hard to show me how this place isn’t that bad.
Later that month, my sister was down visiting us, and she and I went for a walk around Lake Wichita. It was November, and the lake was looking even less attractive than usual. The pretty wildflowers that had previously been blooming happily near the shoreline were dried up and brown. I could tell that Anne wasn’t exactly impressed with the place. I couldn’t really blame her; she’s lived in the same areas that I have. She’s used to big trees whose leaves change into brilliant colors during the fall. She likes hiking on mountain trails. All of the same things that I had begun to take for granted, until I moved to South Carolina and lost a few of them along the way. But, during our conversation, I found myself defending this place for some ridiculous reason. I felt the need to convince her that it wasn’t really that bad, just like my coworker had been trying to convince me.
Soon after that, it all kind of came together and I felt some peace begin to grow between me and my surroundings. I took joy in staring at the stars as Malinda drove us to Denton to see a show. We ended up in the backyard one night counting shooting stars during a meteor shower. And I realized that there are a lot of places in the country where it would be impossible to observe a meteor shower from your backyard.
I watch the birds and that crazy squirrel in the backyard. I inspect trees, the few that exist around here, and breathe in the smell of the varieties of pine near the back door of the library. I’ve become convinced that if I’m going to be happy during the next few years that we live here, I need to have a better attitude about the place. I’m determined, once the weather warms a bit, to scour this town on foot. To engage myself in the community in some way, if even just by physically walking its streets.
Home Weblog News Order Writings Booklist Zines Links