I’ve mentioned before that Iowa was where I was raised, but it never felt like home and how Texas is truly home. Lately I have been wondering why that is - and then I got to realizing that humans are always in transition, and sometimes transition means we’re trying to find where we belong. I’ve been all over this country; I was married before and he was a truck driver. It was a pleasure to be able to see this land for six years in that truck. But going back to Iowa always filled me with a level of dread. And now I can identify why - like speaks to like. I’m a poet, so poetic thought often sneaks it way into my dialogue and in these articles as well. Iowa is beautiful, but it’s cultivated and managed - the land doesn’t have much of a chance to be wild and what Creator intended for it to be. Why? Because Iowa is part of the breadbasket of the U.S. The land is needed for cows, pigs, corn and soybeans. The rivers rolling through that part of the country are largely polluted by runoff from the fields - fertilizers and other pollution from farms and raising cattle and pork. Yet there are glimpses of wildness every once in a while - the stubborn prairie wildflowers that peek out in the grasses along Interstate 80.

Now Texas - there’s my soul match for land. Especially the Hill Country. Here we have the beautiful hills, colorful wildflowers - the majestic blue skies that beckon you outdoors. The flowering cacti, resilient trees and the people. Texans are hardy stock, drive faster than I expected it would be when I first got down here. Cowboy hats, I’ve seen more cowboy hats here than I ever have before, and I love it. It reminds me that we are in the West. Everything is bigger here and that’s a great thing. It doesn’t matter who you are, Jewish, Christian, atheist or “other” - once Texas captures your soul, it has a tendency to keep you!